Bending the private-public gender norms

Working Paper
No. 515
Bending the private-public gender norms: negotiating
schooling for young mothers from low-income
households in Kenya
Wekesa Alice Nelima
February 2011

ISS MA Research Paper Award winner for the academic year 2009-2010
ISSN 0921-0210
The Institute of Social Studies is Europe’s longest-established centre of higher education and
research in development studies. On 1 July 2009, it became a University Institute of the Erasmus
University Rotterdam (EUR). Post-graduate teaching programmes range from six-week diploma
courses to the PhD programme. Research at ISS is fundamental in the sense of laying a scientific
basis for the formulation of appropriate development policies. The academic work of ISS is
disseminated in the form of books, journal articles, teaching texts, monographs and working
papers. The Working Paper series provides a forum for work in progress which seeks to elicit
comments and generate discussion. The series includes academic research by staff, PhD
participants and visiting fellows, and award-winning research papers by graduate students.
Working Papers are available in electronic format at www.iss.nl
Please address comments and/or queries for information to:
Institute of Social Studies
P.O. Box 29776
2502 LT The Hague
The Netherlands
or
2
E-mail: [email protected]
Table of Contents
Acronyms
5
Abstract
6
1 Introduction
7
1.1
Background
7
1.2
Framing the research issue
8
1.3
Relevance and justification
10
1.4
Research objective and questions
11
1.5
Methodology
12
1.6
Organization of the paper
15
2 Conceptual framework
15
2.1
Gender relations
16
2.2
The household as a social arena
16
2.3
Discourses surrounding pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers 18
2.4
Early motherhood
19
2.5
Agency
20
2.6
Intersectionality
20
3 Disengaging and re-engaging with formal schooling: policy and practice 21
3.1
Overview of the Kenya school re-entry policies
21
3.2
Kenya re-entry policies: mis-categorization or weak
implementation?
22
4 Mitigating factors in school re-entry for student-mothers
27
4.1
Triple roles, triple burdens
28
4.2
Household factors: competing, gendered and normative interests
29
4.3
Tabooed images: pregnant schoolgirls and mothers within the
school environment
31
4.4
Neighbourhood factors: community’s perception of student
mothers
33
4.5
Pathways into the schools
35
4.6
Agency and resilience: subverting and contesting and material and
discursive barriers
36
5 Gender relations and the right to education for young mothers
5.1
Gender relations and the education of pregnant school-girls and
student-mothers
3
38
39
5.2
Gender relations and contradictory discourses at the household
and community
40
5.3
Pathways for re-engaging with schooling
41
5.4
Realising the right to education for pregnant schoolgirls and
student-mothers
41
References
42
Appendices
46
Annex I Profile of the study participants
46
Annex II Excerpts of the school return policy passed in 1994
49
Annex III: Excerpts of the National School Health Policy
50
4
Acronyms
CEDAW
Convention on Elimination of Discrimination
Against Women
CBS
Central Bureau of Statistics
CRC
Convention on the Rights of the Child
CSA
Centre for the Study of Adolescence
DEO
District Education Officer
DHS
Demographic Health Survey
EFA
Education For All
EMIS
Education Management Information System
EYC
Elimu Yetu Coalition
GMR
Global Monitoring Report
GPI
Gender Parity Index
KESSP
Kenya Education Sector Support Programme
KIPPRA
Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and
Analysis
MDG
Millennium Development Goal
MSPND
Ministry of State for Planning and National
Development
MOE
Ministry of Education
MOEST
Ministry of Education Science and Technology
MOPHS
Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation
NGO
Non-Governmental Organization
NSHP
National School Health Policy
OECD
Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development
UNESCO
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization
UNICEF
United Nations Children’s Fund
5
Abstract
Despite gender equity concerns in education emerging as a key area of
interventions and debates within the global justice arena, the educational needs
of pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers have received minimal attention.
This research is an attempt to make visible the experiences of young mothers
from a rural community in Kenya and their efforts to realise their right to
education. By interrogating the policy environment that guides the education
of student-mothers and their lived experiences at schools, households and
neighbourhoods, this research unveils how material and discursive dimensions
of gender relations interact with other factors such as insecure livelihoods to
mitigate schooling for student-mothers. The research findings point to the
positive agency and resilience of student-mothers and their potential to transform gendered ideologies that seek to confine motherhood to the private
sphere as they participate in formal education as pregnant schoolgirls and
mothers. However, for the right to education for young mothers to be fully
realised, policies must be attendant to the material and discursive situation of
student mothers.
Keywords
Gender relations, young mothers, education
6
Bending the private-public gender norms
negotiating schooling for young mothers from low-income
households in Kenya
1
Introduction
This silence—the low profile surrounding teen pregnancy [and student-mothers]
in educational research, policy, and practice—is neither natural nor neutral.
Rather, the gaping data holes are a constructed and highly politicized silence. A
repoliticization of teen pregnancy as an educational policy issue shifts the usual
framing... to a politicization of the education of pregnant and mothering students
(Wanda 2006: 60 – 61).
1.1
Background
Education has always played a pivotal role in the social and economic
development of any country; this is more so in enhancing the quality of lives of
its citizens. The recognition of the centrality of education to development and
its effects as a multiplier of other rights (Tomasevski 2003:1) has led to
increased international and national interest in achieving global educational
goals; with a specific focus to girls’ education within developing countries as a
key pathway to gender equality (Unterhalter 2007:39). This significance is
embodied in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2 and 3 as well as
the Education For All (EFA) Goals; specifically MDG 3 and EFA Goal 5 that
recognises educational access as being unequal for boys and girls. Despite the
substantial progress made over the post-Dakar period (2000–2009), girls
remain over-represented among the count of children who are out-of-school.
The 2010 EFA Global Monitoring Report (GMR) indicates that of an
estimated 72 million out-of school children, 54% of them are girls (UNESCO
2010: 1-2).
Gender equity in educational opportunities and outcomes has therefore
emerged as one of the main areas of interventions and debates within global
justice arena. However not all girls face the same challenges in educational
participation. Pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers face unique challenges
in ensuring that their new mothering roles and identities do not translate into a
premature exit from formal education. Evidence from Demographic and
Health Surveys (DHS) point to the fact that early child bearing remains
pervasive in developing countries and continues to constrain girls and young
women from participating in education (Eloundou–Enyegue 2004:510).
Unfortunately, the magnitude and plight of pregnant schoolgirls and studentsmothers, especially in the developing context, has not been adequately
highlighted as a crucial gender issue within education.
This research is an attempt to make visible the experiences of young
mothers from a rural community in Kenya. Analysed against the backdrop of a
normative education policy that allows re-entry of young mothers to school,
the study brings to the fore the tensions that the young mothers encounter as
they navigate a gendered and discursive school system in an endeavour to
7
realise their right to education. Drawing from literature on the household as a
site where competing interests take place, the study also explores household
factors and the way these factors interact with other institutions such as the
school and the community to influence the education of young mothers. The
empirical evidence from the study is drawn from case studies of seven studentmothers who have returned to the mainstream education system after childbearing and five young mothers who had not returned to school at the time of
the study. Their views are triangulated against those of their teachers and
parents.
While most literature on early childbearing refers to the mothers under
twenty years of age as either teenage mothers or adolescent mothers, this paper uses the term ‘student-mothers’ to refer to school-going mothers, while the
term young mothers will be used to refer to young women below twenty years
of age who have children. The term student-mothers is preferred for two main
reasons; one is to capture the double and often times a socially ‘troubling’
identity of being learners and at the same time mothers and secondly it
includes some of the study participants who were over nineteen years of age
and were student-mothers in the schools reached.
1.2
Framing the research issue
As educational aspirations rise in both developed and developing countries,
early childbearing among women below twenty years of age has been perceived
as a social problem as it often leads to a premature end to many young
women’s educational careers. Among the 28 OECD countries, approximately
1.25 million teenagers become pregnant each year; of these 60% become
mothers annually (UNICEF 2001: 2). In Africa, a review of the DHS data from
23 Sub-Saharan countries showed that pregnancies accounted for an average of
18% of all female dropouts in secondary schools and more than 20% in nine
countries (Eloundou-Enyegue 2004:510).
In Kenya, estimates indicate that 142,000 babies are born to women below
20 years of age annually (CSA 2008: 26). The 2003 Kenya DHS (CBS et al
2004: 61) indicates that the proportion of adolescents that have started child
bearing increased from 4% at age fifteen to 49% at age nineteen; crucial ages
associated with improving educational stock. The Coast Province of Kenya, of
which Magarini District (the study site) is located, was listed in the same DHS
as one of the four regions ‘where at least one-fourth of women aged 15–19
have began child bearing’(ibid). Other statistics linking early childbearing and
education in Kenya indicate that 9.9% of the out-of-school girls stopped
attending school due to pregnancy and another 8.1% due to early marriage1.
Chevalier and Viitanen (2003:335) point out that early childbearing ‘reduces the
chances of post-compulsory education by up to 24%’. Considering that
Kenya’s primary education Gender Parity Index (GPI) oscillated between 1.02
in 2002 and 0.94 in 2007 (KIPPRA 2009: 43-45) and the national primary–
secondary transition rate stood at 47.3% by 2007 (ibid), it makes sense to
1
www.girlsdiscovered.org
8
consider the gender equity benefits of addressing the impediments to young
mothers’ long term participation in education.
The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, passed in July
1990, affirms in Article 11(6) that ‘State parties shall take all appropriate
measures to ensure that girls who become pregnant before completing
education are able to continue with their education.’ Pursuant to this, a number
of sub-Saharan countries including Cameroon, Madagascar, Namibia,
Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and Kenya, passed school re-entry policies
allowing young mothers return to schooling (Chilisa 2002: 22). Kenya’s school
re-entry policy was passed in 1994, but despite this policy window of
opportunity that allows the young mothers re-entry into education, it is
acknowledged that very few of them do return to formal schooling (Lloyd and
Mensch 2008: 1, CSA 2008).
School re-entry policies that require an initial disengagement from
schooling during pregnancy have been criticized as being punitive on the
affected girls (Chilisa 2002: 22, Tomasevski 2003:165). Chilisa argues that such
policies constitute a subtle form of violence on the affected girls as the re-entry
process is embedded in ideologies of exclusion (Chilisa 2002: 22). Studies
attesting to the fact that girls who disengage from schooling while pregnant are
less likely to re-engage (Chevalier and Viitanen 2003: 325, EYC 2003: 111,
Wanda 2004: 118) also allude to the inadequacy of school re-entry policies as
the only measure to encourage a return to schooling. Despite this criticism, it is
important to note that these policies represent an important first step in
dismantling discriminatory practises towards young women on the basis of
pregnancy or motherhood. At the same time, evidence indicates that their
enactment has not been accompanied by a corresponding discursive shift in
the way student-mothers are perceived within the education system and the
society as a whole. Young mothers that have taken advantage of this policy
window of opportunity have had to contend with a hostile school
environment, where they are isolated, humiliated and stigmatised by the fellow
pupils; with hardly any effective interventions from teachers (Chigona and
Chetty 2007: 9, CSA 2008: 46-47). Furthermore, the paucity of empirical
studies in developing countries on student-mothers and their educational
conditions makes it difficult to ascertain the magnitude and myriad of
challenges that hinder the school re-entry process as well as their long term
education participation.
Available literature that interrogates the school re-entry policies in
developing countries and the circumstances of student-mothers have tended to
focus on three broad areas. These are: the responsiveness of the policies in
addressing the complex realities of student-mothers (Chilisa 2002, CSA 2008),
the magnitude of early childbearing and its impact on girls educational
participation (Eloundou-Enyegue 2004, Lloyd and Mensch 2008, Mensch et al.
2001) as well as establishing how conducive the school environment is to
student-mothers already in schools (Chigona and Chetty 2007, CSA 2008).
Despite these findings, not many studies have focused on the determinants of
school re-entry for the young mothers at the household or family level. Yet
these factors are important given the fact that most developing countries lack
9
social protection programs that can otherwise serve as incentives for the young
mothers to return to schooling.
Evidently, household characteristics and behaviour have a strong effect on
the re-entry policy; more so parental and community willingness to support
school re-entry for the young mothers, most of whom are jural minors. At
another level, how the households interact with other institutions and the
external socio-cultural environment that mediates these interactions may affect
the chances of schools re-entry. These factors have to be identified and
understood by policy makers and programme managers if Education For All,
including student-mothers, is to be realised. This research will therefore
investigate the micro-processes at the household level and establish how
gender relations within the household and community inhibit or enhance
school re-entry for adolescent mothers.
1.3
Relevance and justification
The global agenda for increased educational participation for girls is grounded
on two basic principles: the first principle, with strong instrumentalist notions,
views educating girls as an investment that will enhance their future labour
return and hence lift them out of poverty (Heward 1999: 4, Unterhalter
2007:39). The second, a moralist principle, argues for girls’ education as a basic
human right that should be accessed by all irrespective of their sex (ibid). The
right to education is entrenched for girls and women, in several United Nations
Conventions such as Universal Declaration for Human Rights (Article 26), in
the International Covenant on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and
the Convention on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
and has been ratified by several countries, including Kenya.
It is this rights-based approach to girls’ education that is the premise for
this study. Bearing in mind that not all girls face the same challenges, realising
the right to education for girls and women calls for the deconstruction of the
categories ‘girls and women’ if all that encompass the two categories are to
realise this right. Ramya Subrahmanian, (cited in Unterhalter 2007: 56)
distinguishes three forms of rights that support gender equality and equity in
education; these are rights to education, rights in education and rights through
education. The complex realities of student-mothers cuts across the three
dimensions of rights identified above, making it necessary to analyse the
processes and power relations that determine their access to education, survival
in school and ability to gain a quality of education that can translate into either
future schooling at secondary levels or reasonable earnings. These are some of
the issues that this research will attempt to unveil.
Although a substantive body of literature exists on teenage pregnancy and
its consequences, there is little information concerning the educational
experiences of young student-mothers in the developed and the developing
parts of the world (Tomasevski 2003: 165, Wanda 2006: 60).Where
information is gathered on cases of pregnant school-girls, it is done as a
process towards change (Tomasevski ibid) as was the case when there was
intensive lobbying for changing the rules from expulsion from school due to
pregnancy. However since the policy was passed, there has been minimal and
10
consistent efforts in ensuring that schoolgirl pregnancy and early childbearing
are looked at as educational issues (Wanda 2006: 60). This research seeks to
contribute towards bridging this knowledge gap by engaging with early
childbearing as an educational issue while simultaneously giving voice to the
experiences of young student-mothers within the formal education system.
The choice of topic also relates to a personal motivation. Drawing on my
own working experience in the development sector, I have in the past
observed that gender and education proponents have ignored the educational
needs and rights of young mothers forced to exit schooling prematurely due to
pregnancy. The discourse has been one of advocating for alternative education
or non-formal education programmes to cater for them. These discourses have
failed to consider the nature and quality of such programmes (if and where
they exist). In developing countries, Kenya included, ‘non-formal education
programs are often run on an ad-hoc basis with little coordination, guidance,
control, or funding from the government’ (MacPherson 2007 cited in
Population Council 2009: 10). The programmes are also run by local
communities and NGOs, often with poor linkages with the mainstream
education systems (Okwany 2004: 178); inspection visits for quality assurance
purposes are rarely undertaken by the government education officials.
Consequently, discourses on non-formal education programmes for young
mothers condemn them to an education of poor quality with limited mobility
to professional careers. I was therefore excited to meet two young mothers
who had managed to return to the mainstream education system and still had
dreams of professional careers despite the disruption in their education. This
research is therefore a partial attempt to give a voice to their experiences and
understand the factors that enhanced their school re-entry.
1.4
Research objective and questions
This study aims to make a contribution to the existing literature on gender
equity in education, specifically on the effects of gendered social relations at
the household and community levels on the education of young mothers. By
situating early childbearing as an educational issue, this research will also
highlight the experiences of student-mothers in schools and the respective
social arenas of school, households and neighbourhoods with a view to
informing policy and practise regarding their situation.
To achieve this objective one main research question and three other
related sub-questions were posed:
1. How do gender relations at the household and community level affect
school re-entry among young mothers?
Sub-Questions:
• What are the young mothers’ experiences of disengaging and reengaging with the education system?
• How do the young mothers’ experiences at the household,
neighbourhoods and school interact to affect the school re-entry
process?
11
• How do these experiences interact to influence the pathway that the
young mothers take/create when returning to schooling?
1.5
Methodology
This is a qualitative case study research that makes extensive use of primary
data. Anchored within a Feminist Standpoint theoretical perspective, this study
privileges the voices of the young mothers and considers their views alongside
those of teachers and parents so as to analyse the young mothers’ experiences
in disengaging and sometimes re-engaging with the mainstream education
system.
Research site
This study was conducted in Marafa Division of Magarini District in the
Coast Province of Kenya between July and August 2010. Until September
2009, Magarini was a division of the larger Malindi district and was elevated to
district status by the Office of the President in September 2009. The main
ethnic communities, who were also the earliest inhabitants into the area, are
Giriamas and Wattas. However other ethnic communities have over the years
migrated and inhabited the area. These include Chonyi, Kambas, Kaumas and
Kikuyus. The 1999 census estimated the Magirini population at 180,160, with
69% of individuals living below the poverty line (CBS 2003 cited in MSPND
2008: 49).The main source of livelihood in the area is subsistence farming
which includes both crop and animal production on a small scale (World
Vision 2006). Most of the communities’ housing structures are mud-walled,
although there has been an improvement from the preferred traditional roofs
made from palm fronds to the now more common iron sheet roofed houses. A
baseline report by World Vision indicates that within Marafa division, distances
to the nearest health facility range between 4-7 kilometres and the average
walking distance to the nearest permanent water point stands between 5-7
kilometres (World Vision 2006). This backdrop of low development is
important as the study aimed at reaching young mothers from low-income
households.
Sampling methods
The primary schools from which the study participants were drawn from
were purposively sampled; this was done with the help of headteachers who
reported that their schools had either student-mothers enrolled or pregnant
girls that dropped out of school. The young mothers that formed the core of
the study were selected on the basis of the fact that they fitted within the main
study criteria of being students in public primary schools at the time they became pregnant and were drawn from five schools in Magarini District ; where
they were either former or current students.
Of the 17 primary schools in Marafa Division of Magarini District; 6
schools were chosen to represent the three locations of Adu, Bungale and
Marafa. However, due to the fact that schools closed earlier than the scheduled
date only five schools were reached. While the headteachers of the five schools
12
confirmed having had schoolgirl pregnancy cases in their respective schools
over the last three years, it is only in three of the five schools reached where
pregnant schoolgirls had returned after childbearing. In these schools, all the
enrolled student-mothers formed part of the study participants. The other two
schools had school-pregnancy cases but had not recorded any returnees; in
these schools young mothers living within the school vicinity and could be
identified by the teachers were approached and requested to participate in the
research.
While the research design had targeted 12 adolescent mothers (age 14–16
year old) due to the assumption that these were the main ages to be found in
the primary schools; only one of the study participants fitted within this
bracket. None of the student-mothers enrolled in school were below 16 years
of age as they ranged between 17 and 20 years of age.
Sources of data and methods
Due the nature of the research question and the type of information that I
was soliciting from the study participants, semi-structured interviews were
employed as the main research technique. In depth semi-structured interviews
were conducted with twelve young mothers; seven of them student-mothers
enrolled in three different schools and five not enrolled in school. With the
exception of three young mothers, all interviews took place at their respective
homes. With one young mother, the interview was conducted at the place
where she was working after getting consent from her employer. Two
interviews were conducted at the school where the student-mothers were
enrolled, after they pointed out that their homes was far off, and going home
for the interviews would mean that they miss the afternoon classes. The
interviews were conducted once with each young mother and lasted between
45 minutes and one hour. Seven of these interviews were voice recorded
following consent from the young mothers, while five of them were not due to
reservation expressed by the study participants.
In addition, interviews were also conducted with parents of the young
mothers (four fathers and three mothers), three teachers from the schools
where the student-mothers were enrolled, one area chief, and the Malindi
District Children’s Officer. The parents were selected due to the fact that they
were in a position to give information on the experiences of the young
mothers at the household and the community levels; while teachers had more
information related to their schooling experience. Following repeated
statements from the young mothers and their parents on the intervention of
the area chiefs; one chief was interviewed so as to get his insight into the
experiences of the young mothers. The Malindi District Children’s Officer,
who also covers the Magarini District, and a representative of an NGO
working with single mothers were also interviewed so as to provide a more
vivid understanding of the support available to the young mothers. A profile of
the study participants is provided as Annex I.
While semi-structured interview were used as the main research technique,
this study also engaged with a wide variety of literature on early childbearing,
gender and education. One study report, on teenage pregnancy and school
drop-out in Kenya, by the Centre for Study of Adolescence in 2008 was
13
consulted extensively. The following government policy documents and
reports were also consulted; the Kenya Gender in Education Policy, the
National School Health Policy and various Ministry of Education reports.
Researching young mothers: challenges and ethical dilemmas
Punch (2002:323,328) states that ‘childhood as a social institution is
constrained by adult society’; hence children have learnt to anticipate adult’s
power over them, more so in schools that are children spaces under the
control of adults (ibid: 328). In view of the fact that access to the studentmothers was facilitated by teachers from the schools they were enrolled in,
most of the young mothers must have felt compelled to participate. The
introductions mainly done by the headteachers, in their offices, already tilted
the power scale in my favour. In one school, the teacher had the studentmothers sitting outside his office waiting for my arrival. A fact that not only
made them completely powerless, but also drew so much attention to them as
other students were curious to know why they were there.
Christensen and Prout (cited in Holland et al. 2010:362) point out that
there will always be power asymmetries between a researcher and study
participants depending on the socio-cultural contexts. However, the researcher
needs to be aware of this and ‘rather than ignoring or blurring power positions,
ethical practice needs to pay attention to them’ (Edwards and Mauthner 2002
cited in Holland et al 2010: 362). In order to address the power imbalance
between myself and the young mothers and provide for their privacy, I chose
to hold the interviews with the student-mothers at venues that were
convenient for them, other than the school environment. Hence, for the seven
student-mothers, four of them chose to have the interviews at their homes.
One student -mother chose to have the interview at the boarding house where
I was residing while two interviews were conducted at school due to long
distances between home and school.
The young mothers were also free to respond to my questions as long as it
was comfortable for them. A number of young mothers chose not to respond
to certain questions that I had asked (although for some it was not an overt
refusal but prolonged silences even when the same question was repeated and
clarified that they had understood), and I chose to respect that. I agree with
Holland & Ramazanoglu (1994:13) who argue that a researcher may have
control and power over the questions she will ask as well as how data is
analysed, but those being studied control what they will disclose. Strikingly,
most of the young mothers choose not to answer the question requiring them
to state the comments made by their peers in school when they were pregnant.
Tellingly, this might have been a way of protecting themselves against reliving
an otherwise unpleasant experience; one they did not see a need for
recounting.
The young mothers that were out of school were much harder to reach
than I had anticipated, as most of them had moved away either to work in the
urban centres or had moved to their marital homes. This necessitated
numerous visits to different homesteads within the villages in search of the
out-of-school young mothers. Although the out-of school young mothers were
14
less influenced by teachers when it came to participating in the study, the
young mothers and their parents were worried that they would be identified as
out-of school children at a time when there was a push by government officials
and civil society organizations to get children enrolled in school. However after
explaining to the parents that I was a student and my findings were for
academic purposes only, a few of them were willing to participate.
Over the different interviews, there were instances of inconsistent
information from parents and their daughters regarding certain issues probed
by this researcher, but more common was on the issue of financial support
from either extended family members or the fathers of the young mothers’
children. To address this dilemma I drew from the Feminist Standpoint Theory
with its emphasises on situated knowledge and the argument that a ‘specific
social situatedness endows the subject with a privileged access to truth’
(Stoetzler and Yuval-Davis 2002: 316). On the same issue, Alderson and
Goodey (1996 cited in Punch 2002: 325) highlight the need for researchers to
be aware of assuming adults’ knowledge as being superior over that expressed
by children and youth. With this in mind, I chose to privilege the information
provided by the young mothers over that of their parents since they were
better positioned to know the real story on issues affecting them and their
children.
1.6
Organization of the paper
This paper is organized into five main chapters; with this first chapter serving
as an overview of the research topic of early childbearing and education. The
second chapter provides a conceptual framework that serves as a critical lens
for analysing the lived experiences of the young mothers in their community
and school settings. Chapters three and four provide an analysis of the research
findings; with Chapter 3 highlight the policy related issues that shape the
educational experiences of pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers. Chapter
4 provides an analysis of the key factors that intervened to either enhance or
inhibit school re-entry for the young mothers. The concluding chapter
provides an overview of the study findings and their implication on the
education of pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers.
2
Conceptual framework
This research seeks to understand how young unmarried mothers and their
guardians negotiate within the school, household and neighbourhoods and
either conform with or subvert gender relations that constrain their return to
school. To do this, it is important to provide a conceptual framework that
serves as a lens from which the experiences of the young mothers can be
viewed and analysed. The following concepts, deemed to be important to this
research will be discussed: gender relations, the household, early childbearing,
discourses on school-girl pregnancy and student-mothers, and agency.
15
2.1
Gender relations
Gender relations refers to interactions between women and men that are
socially constructed, often in a manner that they also signify power relations
between the two (Kynch 1998:108). These interactions have both ‘material and
ideological’ dimensions that are constitutive in nature (Agarwal 1997: 1-2),
often tilting the power balance in favour of men in most patriarchal
communities. These material and discursive dimensions are visible not only in
the socially recognised differential allocation of roles, responsibilities and
resources, but also in ‘ideas and representations-ascribing to women and men
[of] different abilities, attitudes, desires, personalities’ (ibid). At the ideological
level, public and private spheres are separate domains that are associated with
gender. Women and their socially ascribed roles are associated with the private
sphere of home which is viewed as an arena for personal relations as opposed
to the masculinised public sphere that is associated with impersonal relations
(Harding 1986). Similar to other social relations, gender relations are culture
specific and evolve with time; shaping the nature of interactions between the
two sexes in both the private and the public sphere.
Some of these culturally specific socially constructed norms, such as the
gender division of labour in reproductive work and gendered norms on
sexuality have become accepted in many societies as a ‘natural and self-evident
part of the social order’ (Agarwal 1997: 15). Hence social norms on gender
relations mediate interactions across the institutions considered in this research
paper; namely the household, the community and the school. This concept will
facilitate the analysis of the gendered experiences of the young mothers at
school as well as at the household.
2.2
The household as a social arena
Theorization of the household2 as a social arena of production and resource
allocation evolved from unitary models that conceptualised the house-hold as a
harmonious unified entity that pools available resources and a ‘benevolent
dictator’ who allocates these resources in a manner that maximises utility
(Haddad et al, 1997: 3). These assumptions were later disapproved by
anthropologists, setting off a set of collective approaches to theorization of
household production and allocation behaviour based on bargaining theory
(ibid, Ellis 2000: 19). These collective approaches accommodate power
asymmetries among the household members and are therefore useful in
analysing gender relations (Agarwal 1997:2). Hence, the household is
conceptualised as a site of competing gendered interests, rights and obligations,
For the purposes of this research the household is conceived to encompass coresidential arrangements and the kinship relationships that exists among the members
in the shared residence and characterised by coordinated (Ellis 2000: 18). However,
this view also recognises that ‘the maintenance of networks of mutual support
between kin does not require co-residence or even close proximity’ (Bruce and Lloyd
1997: 214), as is most in Africa, families tend to have persons connected to them by
blood or marriage residing outside the family but maintain economic connections.
2
16
with household members often involved in bargaining, negotiations, and even
conflict (Moore 1994 cited in Kandiyoti 1998: 135).
Households in developing countries comprise of, the elderly, adults and
children; each with varying rights and obligations that are determined not only
from a jural standpoint (Greenhalgh 1985: 268) but also from a socio-cultural
one. From a jural perspective, the relationship between children and parents is
seen as an exchange of rights and duties, or obligations and counterobligations, among family members (Greenhalgh 1985:268). While from a
social-cultural perspective, social norms on gender relations place varying
rights and obligations on the male and female adults/children; accounting for
what Agarwal (1997: 15) termed as ‘local theories of entitlement’ that stipulate
who gets what and through what sort of work. The interaction of these two
standpoints forms the basis for intra-household allocation of resources,
particularly investment in education. This makes the household a site where
‘particularly intense social and economic interdependencies occur between a
group of individuals’ (Ellis 2000: 18).
From a livelihoods perspective3, Battacharya and Rani (cited in Mtshali
2002: 22) point out that by utilizing the resources accessible both internally and
externally, household activities are an important part of the generation of
livelihood security. Furthermore, it is argued that an increase in the family size,
necessitated by the birth of a new child, has implications on the household
livelihood arrangements especially when available resources are rendered
inadequate; thereby necessitating new livelihood arrangements so as to meet
the additional consumption costs (Koohi-Kamali 2008: 3, Okwany
forthcoming: 12). Two of the five types of capital indentified within the
livelihood approach are analytically useful for this research as they have a direct
implication on the lives of young mothers and their schooling experiences;
these are financial capital and social capital (especially kinship ties).
The new livelihood arrangements, necessitated by the birth of a new child,
may include re-allocation of roles and getting more members of the family into
the labour market for additional income. Here, the socially constructed gender
relations discussed in the section above become a significant mediator of the
social and economic interdependencies within the household and influence the
decision making process. Subsequently, in patriarchal societies it is common to
find that there is little investment in daughters as they are seen as temporary
members of a household and will eventually leave for their marital home
(Greenhalgh 1985, cited in Diane Wolf: 1997: 126, Stromquist 1999: 22). The
household is therefore an important concept for this study as it is a site for
decision making and resource allocations that affect educational access for
young mothers and their daily life experiences.
The livelihood approach, mainly utilised in work on poverty and rural development
defines livelihood as comprising ‘the assets (natural, physical, human, financial and
social capital), activities and the access to these (mediated by the institutions and social
relations) that together determine the living gained by the individual or household.’
(Ellis 2000:10)
3
17
2.3
Discourses surrounding pregnant schoolgirls and
student-mothers
Discourses can be understood as ‘historically constructed systems of
knowledge...which facilitate the interpretation of issues’ (Hailonga 2005:8) and
have the power to influence practice (Ramazanoglu 1993:2). The discourses
surrounding sexuality among the youth are often ‘inconsistent and
contradictory’ depending on whether they are deployed on a male or female
person (Hailonga 2005: 195). Pregnant school-girls and student-mothers are
surrounded by discourses that stem from what Foucault termed as the
‘repressive hypothesis’ that served as an ‘injunction to silence on sexuality’; a
silence that should not be misconstrued as an absence of discourses (Foucault
1978:4). Schools have historically played a role in the monitoring and
controlling of young people’s sexuality. While creating the impression that sex
was not discussed, the discursive practices within schools, such as the elaborate
planning of recreation lessons and sitting arrangements alluded to the
assumption that the sexuality of adolescents was ever presented hence
‘institutional devises and discursive strategies have been deployed’ to monitor
this sexuality (ibid: 28-30).However, Foucault also cautions that there is no
clear divide between accepted and unaccepted discourses; contradictory
discourses can operate even within the same social space (Foucault 1978:101102). Two main discourses within educational institutions are relevant for this
research paper; these are the discourses of immorality and contaminations; and
discourses on pregnant school girls as ‘poor or incapable students’ (Wanda
2006: 64).
Socially constructed norms and perspectives are influenced by historical
events. In post-colonial Kenya, the entwined history of colonialism and
Christianity influenced indigenous perspectives and practices of sexuality
(Ahlberg et al. 2009: 107). However, from both the indigenous and the nonindigenous; the institution of marriage is recognised and sanctioned as the
morally right ‘arena for sexual expression’ (ibid) and childbearing (Nsamenang
2002: 71, Okwany forthcoming: 12). Sexual relations and childbearing outside
the socially sanctioned institution of marriage are frowned upon. Pregnant
school-girls and young unmarried student-mothers are evidence of intimate
sexual relations outside the sanctioned arena and are therefore framed as
immoral ‘wanton females’ or at the very least ‘victims’ of sexual exploitations
(Wanda 2006:66).Within schools, unmarried student-mothers are judged to be
immoral and assumed to be social threats that can potentially set off ‘an
epidemic of immoral and promiscuous behaviour’ within the student body
(ibid: 67, Okwany forthcoming: 12). This had lead to stigmatization of pregnant
schoolgirls and student-mothers and a number of discriminatory practices that
send negative messages on the educational prospects of student mothers.
Pregnant teenagers have also been framed as deviant students who were
already underperforming in school and therefore had low aspirations
(Chevalier and Viitanen 2003, Mulongo 2005:25, Phoenix 1991: 26). This
casting of pregnant school-girls and student-mothers as ‘incapable’ or ‘poor
students’ has had both short and long term implications on their educational
experiences. In the short term, this framing lowers the academic expectations
on student-mothers and reduces the educational support that teachers are
18
willing to extend to such students are they are already deemed to be incapable
(Chigona and Chetty 2007:10, CSA 2008:42). In the long term, this framing is
implicated in the type of educational programmes recommended for pregnant
adolescents and young women with children (Wanda 2004:111).Important to
note too is that the state and its other institutions can sometimes consciously
or unconsciously draw from available discourses when enacting well
intentioned policies and programmes for particular groups including school reentry policies for student-mothers. This research will analyse the discourses
deployed by pupils, parents and teachers and their effects in relation to the
education of pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers.
2.4
Early motherhood
Childhood and adulthood are taken to be experientially different; with
adolescence4 being the transition period that bridges the two. Even though
adolescence is viewed as a transition period and preparation for adulthood
(Phoenix 1991: 24, Nsamenang 2002: 69), adolescents are still perceived as
jural minors and children as is evident in the Convention of the Right of the
Child (CRC) that defines a child as anyone below the age of 18 years. Phoenix
(1991) further states that young mothers below 20 years of age (often referred
to as teenage mothers) are in an ambiguous status as they have taken on adult
roles of mothering at a time when they are not considered mature enough. By
taking on adult roles, the young mothers blur the social divide between childhood and adulthood (De Boek and Honwana 2005:4). This is more so as the
pregnant body of a teenage girl is a constant reminder of an active sexuality,
that is antithetical to the category of students, the ‘silences’ on sexuality within
schools and the supposed innocence of children (Wanda 2006: 65, Foucault
1987: 34, Phoenix 1991: 25). Despite these discourses, the participation of
pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers in education has been made possible
by the existence of policies; classified as either re-entry or continuation
policies, that seek to ensure that pregnancy and motherhood are not grounds
for denying females the right to education.
In her book ‘Woman Born Motherhood as Experience and Institution’,
Rich (1976: 13, 34), differentiates between motherhood as an experience that
encompasses the reproductive capacities of women and their relationships with
children; and motherhood as an institution for women’s social control; laden
with a history and ideology more fundamental than nationalism. This ideology
is behind the upholding of certain discourses of ‘ideal’ motherhood and
ambivalence to motherhood depending on the context in which it occurs.
Motherhood is met with approval and celebration when it happens within the
approved social institution of marriage, and on the other hand, disapproval
when in happens to unmarried women. This ambivalence is also evident within
the cultural attitudes and practices towards young unmarried mothers.
Hailonga (2005:195) points out that while parents may be upset with the young
The World Health Organization defines adolescence as between the ages of 10–19
years.
4
19
mothers for getting pregnant while single, they often welcome the baby as
culturally children are viewed as a blessing.
The emphasis on the institution of marriage as the appropriate arena for
childbearing fits well within the gender division of roles and responsibilities
that placed different expectations on mothers from those of fathers (Phoenix
1991: 21). While fathers were ideally expected to provide the financial and
material support, mothers were expected to meet the caring needs of their
children and their fathers. This has made motherhood a role that is normally
confined to the private sphere with its own ideal standards (Thorne 1982:11).
These ideals are difficult for the young unmarried mothers, especially those in
school, as it necessitates taking motherhood from the private into the public
sphere of schools. A contradiction that is uncomfortable within the education
system.
Among some Africa communities, including the study community,
children born to unmarried mothers belonged to the woman’s family and were
under the custody of her male relatives (Obbo 1980: 34). For such children, the
‘biological fathers rights to custody and filiation were only transferred upon the
payment of compensation’ (ibid). Girls that became pregnant prematurely not
only reduced their chances of being married to a bachelor, but also reduced the
‘compensation’ in terms of bride-wealth that her family would receive in
exchange for her ‘purity’ and reproductive capacity (ibid: 51, CSA 2008: 44).
Obbo (1980:51) states that these actions conveyed the message that girls
should give birth at their husband’s and not the parents’ homes. This view is
also relevant for this study, since within the Giriama community, children born
to unmarried mothers belong to her family, who have the responsibility to
provide for the child unless the child’s father has paid the ‘compensation’ for
sexual relations with a woman who is not his wife.
2.5
Agency
Kabeer (1999: 438) points that agency is the ‘ability to define one’s goals and
act towards it’. Apart from an individual’s actions that can be seen as an
obvious expression of agency; agency also includes the covert meanings and
motivations that individuals give to their actions (Agarwal 1997:25; Kabeer
1999:438). Agency takes on a positive form when an individual is not only able
to define and pursue their goals, but is able to do this even when faced with
opposition (Kabeer ibid). On the other hand, agency takes on a negative form
when others are able override an individuals’ choice of goals and actions
through the use of violence and threats (ibid). Agency is therefore a crucial
concept that will provide an analytical lens to understanding the actions taken
by the student-mothers to subvert, conform or negotiate with gender relations
at the school, households and community level.
2.6
Intersectionality
Intersectionality reveals how categories such as ethnicity, class and gender, are
social locations that converge and interact to place individuals from specific
groups in particularly disadvantaged situations (Dance 2009: 180). Leslie
20
McCall has analysed three main intersectional methodologies that can be used
as methodological tools for conducting an intersectional analysis; these are
‘anticategorical complexity’ that seeks to deconstruct categories,
‘intracategorical complexity’ that does not reject categories but seeks to expose
doubly marginalized identities and ‘intercategorical complexity’ that can be
used to analyse inequalities among social groups (McCall 2005:1773-1774).
This research will utilise the ‘intracategorical complexity’ methodology to
analyse the challenges and opportunities available to the young mothers in their
different identities as learners, daughters, and young mothers.
The concepts of gender relations, discourses of school-girls pregnancy,
early motherhood and the household will be analysed as encompassing the
social structures and locations in which the young mothers are embedded in
and has therefore shaped their experiences, but as social actors, their agency
will the an important concept on how they shape and are shaped by the social
structures and arenas. The differences among the young mothers’ experiences
will be highlighted through an intersectional analysis.
3
Disengaging and re-engaging with formal schooling:
policy and practice
This chapter provides an analysis of the policy environment that guides the
young mothers’ experiences of disengaging and sometimes re-engaging with
schooling. The analysis is based on the Kenya School Re-entry policy
guidelines, published in the CSA report (2008:45) as well as the more recent
National School Health Policy (NSHP) that has relevant sections on schoolgirl
pregnancy (MOPHS and MOE 2009:23-24). The policy stipulations within
these two documents, which form the principal guidelines for school
administrators, will be reviewed against the experiences of the young mothers
and the narratives of the teachers. An overview of the two policies will first be
provided5 and will be followed by a review of the implementation process as
deduced from the experiences of the young mothers and discussions with the
teachers that participated in this study.
3.1
Overview of the Kenya school re-entry policies
Kenya is among a handful of African governments that have put in place
policies on pregnant girls within the education system. The policies on
schoolgirl pregnancy have been categorised as either continuation or re-entry
policies (Chilisa 2002: 24). Continuation policies allow for uninterrupted
continuation of schooling by pregnant schoolgirls and an immediate return to
schooling after delivery; these kind of policies are deemed to be more
transformative as they challenge gendered ideologies and practices and are also
sensitive to the educational needs of pregnant schoolgirls (Chilisa 2002:24).
On the other hand, re-entry policies necessitate a disengagement with
schooling and only allow for re-entry after a specified period of compulsory
leave during pregnancy and lactation (ibid).The re-entry policies are deemed to
5
Excerpts of the two policies are provided as Annex II and III.
21
have failed to engage with and transform existing gender relations as they are
seen to be based on cultural and traditional ideologies on pregnancy and
motherhood (ibid).
Kenya’s policy (passed in 1994), has the characteristic features of
disengagement and re-engagement with schooling and therefore falls under the
category of re-entry policies. More recently (in 2009), the Kenya Ministry of
Education (MOE), in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health and
Sanitation (MOPHS) launched the National School Health Policy (NSHP)
which also articulates the specified action that school administrators should
take when dealing with schoolgirl pregnancy cases. Both documents clearly
state that girls that become pregnant while in school should be allowed to
continue with their studies for as long as possible. Since there is no predetermined mechanism for ascertaining how long is long enough, the decision
is left to teachers, parents and the schoolgirls, who have interpreted and
implemented this provision disparately. Both policy documents place a great
emphasis on the counselling of affected school-girls, their parents and others
girls, and at the same time encourages the parents to seek re-admission for the
student-mothers in schools, other than those that they were enrolled in while
pregnant, so as to avoid ‘psychological and emotional trauma’ (CSA 2008: 45).
This acknowledgement that pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers are
possible victims of stigmatizing discourses and practices is not accompanied by
any stipulations on how to deal with the perpetrators of the abhorrent
practices.
3.2 Kenya re-entry policies: mis-categorization or weak
implementation?
Kenya’s school re-entry policy, passed in 1994, has been said to be plagued by
weak and inconsistent implementation (CSA 2008: 46). This inconsistency was
evident within the five schools that were part of this research. The
inconsistencies ranged from how teachers identified pregnant girls in their
respective schools, what they did once they confirmed pregnancy and all the
way to the re-admission of student-mothers into schools.
‘Officialising’ suspected pregnancy cases and next steps
The guidelines for implementing the re-entry policy passed in 1994 states that:
Intensive guidance and counselling should be provided to affected the girl,
parents, teachers and others girls in schools. Once a girl is sent home the parents
should be summoned to schools and receive some counselling after which they
should take their daughter home (CSA 2008: 45).
These guidelines leave out the question of how teachers should determine that
there is a pregnancy in the first place so as start off the recommended actions.
The NSHP tries to address this gap by stating that ‘girls will undergo voluntary
medical screening once per term’ (MOPHS and MOE 2009: 23). While the
question of how “voluntary” pregnancy testing can be within the Kenyan
22
school context has been a subject of intense debate6, this study takes it to mean
that the student suspected to be pregnant must, on her own free will accept to
take the pregnancy tests if and when requested. It is therefore likely that
schoolgirls suspecting themselves to be pregnant will not volunteer for the
tests.
This can be interpreted to mean that the onus is on the teachers to take
the first step. Some teachers pointed out, and rightly so, that they do not have
the mandate to force girls to take a pregnancy test even when rumours of a girl
being pregnant have reached them. While a few teachers took charge and
summoned girls that were rumoured to be pregnant so as to ascertain the truth,
two of the three teachers in this study pointed out that they often adopted a
‘wait and see’ attitude towards such cases. These teachers reported that they
waited for parents or guardians to come and inform them of the pregnancy so
that they can then take action.
In one case, during the planning and sampling stage of this research with
the District Education Office, one headteacher when asked if he had any cases
of pregnant girls or student-mothers in his school, stated that he had some
‘unofficial cases’ as they are yet to be reported to his office by the girls’ parents.
Upon further probing on the issue of ‘officialising’ pregnancy cases and why he
would not take the initiative to confront such cases he pointed out that this
was due to fear of parents’ reaction to news of their daughter’s pregnancy.
Depending on the prevailing religious and socio-cultural beliefs, parents are
more likely to react negatively to news of their daughters’ pregnancy. This view
was shared by two other teachers from the schools that took part in this
research.
Some parents may already be aware of the pregnancy and are planning for an
abortion, as such a confrontation from teachers may disrupt their plans, and they
do not like this. Some parents may go as far as asking you how you knew of the
pregnancy and try and implicate you. We recently had a case of a Standard Seven
girl who was pregnant and a few months later the pregnancy was not there. (JD
teacher)
This, ‘officialising’ dilemma provided some space for pregnant schoolgirls to
prolong their stay in school until the time when they are confronted by their
teachers; a space that was exploited by some of the young mothers in this
study:
I did not stop attending school even after my pregnancy rumours were all over
the school and one female teacher used to give me a ‘bad eye’. I attended school,
did my end of term 3 exams, by then I was either 8 months pregnant (MK1, 17
year-old student-mother).
After my wife had informed me that our daughter was pregnant, I went to
inform the teacher at her school, strangely the teacher was not surprised…he said
he had been expecting us to come and inform him as he had noticed
An article by Vukets, in one Kenya’s leading daily newspapers collated the divergent
views on voluntary pregnancy testing on school-girls from parents, teachers and
religious leaders. The article is available at: http://www.nation.co.ke/News//1056/829400/-/vo7vw2/-/
6
23
“something”. Luckily he did not object when asked to let my pregnant daughter
stay in school (JSK, father of one student-mother)
This prolonged stay in school while pregnant was important as it helped the
pregnant schoolgirls develop the resilience necessary for a return to schooling
as a student-mother.
As part of the next steps after establishing pregnancy, is the question of
which official channels should be followed to ensure that pregnant schoolgirls
received the required support. The NSHP calls for teachers to work with
Children’s Officers (government officials in-charge of ensuring children’s
rights and wellbeing) so that legal action can be taken if those responsible for
impregnating the schoolgirls are found to be over 18 years of age.
Behind this policy directive is the assumption that all school-going girls are
less than 18 years of age, since there are no guidelines for what steps the
teachers are to take should the pregnant-school girl be more than 18 years. Yet
the reality on the ground is that girls aged more than 18 years of age are still in
primary schools (two student-mothers that participated in this study are a case
in point). Late enrolment in school, coupled with the fact that teachers force
children that are not performing well to repeat classes is a major cause of
overage learners in the Kenya; factors that disproportionately affect girls (EYC
2003: 111). The lack of guidelines of how to handle such young women
complicates that situation for both headteachers and parents. The District
Children’s Officer interviewed as part of this study pointed out that parents
who came to report that their ‘school-going children’ had been impregnated,
would get shocked when told that no action could be taken once the
government dentist7 has ascertained that their ‘children’ are 18 years of age or
above and are therefore considered consenting adults.
Clearly schooling is considered as an experience for children by both
policy makers and parents, even when the ‘children’ have in reality attained the
age of majority. The pregnancy therefore serves as a sharp departure from
childhood and sends a clear message to parents and teachers; that the
schoolgirls are no longer children as they have now taken on the adult roles of
motherhood. In only three of the twelve young mothers’ cases were
government officials, other than those from the education sector involved. In
these three cases, the local Provincial Administration such as the area chiefs
were involved and facilitated, to a great extent, the securing of some form of
child support for the young mothers.
Parents tended to stop pursing any form of action once the young men
involved with their daughters had acknowledged paternity and pledged to
provide financial support for the unborn child. The financial support was an
important factor to consider when parents needed to decide whether to
support the young mothers’ to return to schooling and will be discussed in the
next chapter. Unfortunately the lack of guidelines on how to handle cases of
Due to a centralised system of birth registration, children from rural areas are often
not registered, making it difficult to ascertain the age of affected girls. This is compounded by low literacy levels among the parents. The services of the government
dentist are therefore used to determine the approximate age of the pregnant schoolgirls.
7
24
pregnant schoolgirls over 18 years of age is a major cause of attrition as both
parents and teacher do not feel the compulsion to ensure that the young
mothers complete their basic education cycle.
Disengagement and re-engagement: timing and processes
The NSHP guidelines states that pregnant schoolgirls can continue with
schooling for as long as possible, but the re-engagement process is expected to
take place anytime between four and six months after childbearing. However,
it is not clear who should determine what is considered as long enough for the
pregnant schoolgirl or whether there is any medical report necessary to
ascertain that the pregnant schoolgirl can no longer attend school. Left to the
individual interpretation of the policy implementers, this has led to a wide
discrepancy on the actual practice.
On disengagement with schooling, the experiences of the study
participants varied; with some leaving school as early as when four months
pregnant and others staying until the very last days of the pregnancy. Two
young mothers reported that they had stopped attending school as early as four
months into the pregnancy. One of them stated that the headteacher had told
her to ‘go and rest’ and return after childbearing. Since I did not get to
interview this teacher, it is difficult to assess whether his statement was
motivated by his concern for the girls health or he was conforming to the
ideology that pregnancy is something that should happen in the private space.
However this points out the unreliability of individual interpretations of the
policy directives. The girl in question went to work as a child minder for a
woman who owned and managed a teahouse at the nearby shopping centre,
and was therefore denied an opportunity to continue with schooling for no
apparent reason. This leeway to send pregnant girls home at will is consistent
with Chilisa’s (2002: 24) theorization of re-entry policies as having failed to
challenge existing discursive dimensions of gender relations and a constitute a
subtle form of violating the girls’ right to education.
Similarly, the young mothers’ process and timing of re-engaging with
schooling varied from one school to another and even when applicable to
different student-mothers within the same school. Among the seven studentmothers, the shortest turnaround time between disengaging and re-engaging
turned out to be three (3) weeks after delivery and the longest two years. The
return time was partly a function of the caring demands of the new born
babies; a gendered role that is reinforced by the NSHP that emphasises the
need for the young mothers to bond with their new born babies as much as
possible as well as places the full burden of care arrangements on the young
mothers and their parents.
Deafening silences
All the teachers and education officials I came across concurred that early
childbearing was prevalent in the District. In fact, one teacher pointed out that
I had come to the right place for my research as there will be no shortage of
study participants. Unfortunately, this verbal information could not be backed
up with documented cases at the schools visited, it was therefore not possible
25
to get documented records of all school-girl pregnancy cases reported over the
last 3 years; neither were there any official records on of the number of young
mothers that had returned to school. Hand written letters from the
headteachers were seen by this researcher at the DEO’s office but copies of
the same letters were at times not available at the school from which they
originated. Teachers pointed out that they did not have access to photocopying
machines; yet carbon papers could have served the same purpose.
One of the Investment Programme within the Kenya Education Sector
Support Programme (KESSP) highlights the need to invest in a detailed
Educational Management Information System (EMIS) that can provide useful
in-formation for education planning and decision making (MOEST 2005a:
135-136). One main product of this investment programme is a ‘Core Data
Collection instrument’ (MOEST 2005b:43) that is used for conducting an
‘annual school census’ on the number of children enrolled in schools by sex,
orphan status, and children with disabilities (by type). But conspicuously
missing from this instrument is the provision to collect data on pregnant
schoolgirls and student-mothers; a deafening silence that I interpret as a
deliberate denial of the active sexuality of adolescent learners that fits within
with Foucault’s ‘repressive hypothesis’ (Foucault 1978: 28).
While policy guidelines, such as the need for voluntary pregnancy testing
(MOPHS and MOE 2009: 23); point to the awareness of the ever present
adolescent sexuality that needed to be monitored; collecting data on pregnant
on pregnant schoolgirls and student mothers will therefore be a tacit
acknowledgement that schools have failed to rein in the sexuality of
schoolgirls’. This interpretation is supported by the resistance demonstrated by
religious leaders in 1997 that forced the MOE to abandon plans to introduce
family life education, which would have initiated sex education in schools
(Ahlberg et al. 2001: 26). Christian religious leaders, joined by their Muslim
counterparts, organised public burning of condoms and sex education
materials in various parts of the country to protest the planned introduction of
family life education (ibid). In view of this background, attempts to track the
number of pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers is also likely to be met by
the same resistance as it acknowledges the active sexuality of schoolgirls
outside the socially sanctioned arena of marriage. This silence also
demonstrates the low priority given to the education of pregnant schoolgirls
and student-mothers as argued by Wanda (2006:60)
Gendered discursive undertones in Kenya’s re-entry policies
These government policies on school-girl pregnancy have also not escaped the
socially constructed gendered ideologies and discourses, and have implicitly set
different standards on educational participation and parenting between the
young mothers and child-fathers. The NSHP encourages the young mothers to
take on their mothering roles, breastfeed their babies exclusively for six
months and develop strong bond with their new born babies. On the other
hand, while the pregnant schoolgirls disengage from learning and learn to take
on the “good mother” roles, child-fathers (in cases where they were also
learners, and have been identified) continued learning, and at most, were
26
expected to receive counselling and rehabilitation (MOPHS and MOE 2009:
23).
Within the policies is the apparent conformity with the dominant
discourses of childcare as a feminine responsibility that can only be fulfilled by
the young mothers and a permissive attitude towards the sexuality of male
pupils. It is therefore evident that schools are not ‘neutral entities...[but]...
mirror and reproduce the social norms and inequalities in wider society’
(Okwany forth-coming:13). In this case pregnant schoolgirls, who are
perceived as an promiscuous females and therefore required to bear the
indignity of pregnancy tests every four months (MOPHS and MOE 2009:23)
as well as the consequences of the pregnancy while the child-fathers are
treated as a naughty children that only require counselling. This also conforms
to the dominant notions of women as having a natural tendency towards
promiscuity (Mulongo 2005:29) and therefore a dangerous sexuality that needs
to be regulated (Okwany forth-coming:12).
Conclusion
In conclusion the above dissonance between policy and practise points to a
number of issues. The first issue is the fact that underneath the attempts to
provide education for pregnant school girls and student-mothers, state re-entry
policies have not escaped the gendered discourses that set different parameters
for the male and female students involved in the pregnancy cases. Secondly, is
whether with this kind of practise, Kenya’s policy can correctly be categorised
as a re-entry policy, especially in view of the fact pregnant girls are able to stay
in school until a day before delivery and return as early as one month after
childbearing. This second issue is important as I argue that the inconsistencies
provided spaces for negotiating a prolonged stay and early re-engagement with
schooling by pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers and is at the same time
a demonstration of Kenya’s potential to go the whole hog and introduce the
more transformative continuation policies.
Realising Kenya’s potential for transformative policies and practices on
schoolgirl pregnancy and student-mothers will therefore necessitate that the
state confronts the gendered ideologies and discursive practices on youth
sexuality that permeate the social space of which the state itself is embedded.
At the same time, in view of the need to cater for the post-partum health of
the young mothers as well as the new born babies; greater synergies will be
needed between the Ministries of Health and Education to see to the wellbeing of pregnant schoolgirls, young mothers and their new born babies.
4
Mitigating factors in school re-entry for studentmothers
This chapter reviews the experiences of the student-mothers within their
households, neighbourhoods, schools in relation to their educational
participation. The findings presented demonstrate the young mothers’ efforts
to balance the triple roles of learners, daughters and mothers as well as
negotiate with factors emanating from the social locations of the young
27
mothers; namely the household, neighbourhoods and school. These factors
will be reviewed in light of how they affect the young mothers return to formal
education. Finally the agency and resilience of the young mothers as analysed
from their narrated experiences is explored.
4.1
Triple roles, triple burdens
Gender relations shape they way individuals live their daily lives in the family as
well as within the wider community and even in schools. Writing on the
Nigerian context, Nnameka (2003 cited in Fennel and Arnot 2008:528) states
that ‘women’s lives do not fall into time mediated compartments of girl, sister,
mother...but these may overlap and co-exist through her life.’ This was evident
from the young mothers that participated in this research as their roles as
mothers, daughters and learners co-existed simultaneously, and sometimes
conflicted. As young unmarried mothers, living under the authority of their
parents meant that they had to fulfil the socially prescribed roles of daughters
within the gender division of labour regime.
I wake up at 5 a.m. I fetch water and help to water our family vegetable garden.
After that I go home with some water, boil it and bath my son. Then I make for
him breakfast and feed him…Schools starts at 6.45 am with early morning study
time, so I am normally late or sometimes I miss the preps, and if the duty teacher
is strict, I get punished for that…In the evenings, I wash my son’s dirty clothes,
then I cook the evening meal, pound maize, fetch water for house use and clean
up the dishes. Since I feed my son between 6-7pm, I stop other duties so as to
prepare his evening meal and ensure that his food is ready on time as he sleeps
early (MK1, 17 year old student-mother).
My sister helps me during the weekdays, but over the weekend I have to do
everything, from cleaning the house, cooking for everyone and taking care of my
son. She complains that she does all the work during the weekdays, so she rests
on weekends and I take over. It is hard to study over the weekend. (SA, 17 year
old student-mother)
From the time I had my baby, I stayed home for one year and two months
because there was no one to take care of my son, my mother had delivered my
younger sister a few months earlier and she was busy with her. When my son
started walking I was able to return to school (DM, 19 year of student-mother).
A similar trend was noted among all seven student-mothers, as they
simultaneously balanced the triple roles of learners, daughters and mothers
simultaneously. Each of these roles that they had taken on had both ‘material
and ideological’ dimensions (Agarwal 1997:2) that dictates the proper
behaviour for daughters, mothers and students. As ‘good’ daughters they had
to help in the housework as this was one way of preparing them for their
future roles as wives (Okwany forthcoming: 11). As mothers they had to
ensure that their children’s caring needs were met and as learners, they had to
adhere to a rigid school routine and calendar. These roles often conflicted,
such as the times when student-mothers reported that they had to miss school
to attend to their sick babies. This is consistent with the findings of a
28
‘burdened femininity’ among young girls in urban slums of Kenya by Okwany
(forthcoming: 11).
From the student-mothers narratives, it can also be deduced that the
identity and roles of the young mothers as learners was often subsidiary to the
other roles of daughters and mothers. The young mothers as well as their
parents deemed schooling not as an entitlement, but as an option that could be
considered only after it was confirmed that there was adequate female labour
to support the household chores and childcare responsibilities.
An intersectional analysis of the experiences of the young mothers reveals
that balancing the triple roles came at a high cost for young mothers from
households without adequate female labour to support the gender roles reserved for women and young girls. For these young mothers, the option of
leveraging on their kinship ties to negotiate and bargain for their school return
was not an option. This situation was compounded when the older mothers
were still in their childbearing ages, with their own small children to take care
of. However, young mothers with older sisters, as well as mothers that had
stopped bearing children were better able to leverage on their available labour
and return to schooling.
4.2
Household factors: competing, gendered and normative
interests
At the household level, three key factors prominently influenced the likelihood
of young mothers returning to formal schooling. These factors were; fathers
support over the decision to return to school, the structure of the household,
and finally the availability of financial support from either the young mother’s
partners or the extended family.
The Mafara communities’ way of life and culture favours men more than
women. This patriarchy is evident in the fact that ‘all the resources within the
society (including women and children), belonged to men’ who had
unrestricted access, ownership and control of resources; including the land that
the women depended on for subsistence farming (World Vision 2006). Hence,
decision making on school re-entry was influenced by the interests of fathers;
sometimes in consultation with older sons.
My elder brothers asked me to stop attending school since I was pregnant...I
could not say anything to oppose them as they are older than me. My father also
took their side and also said I should not go to school. But my mother really
wanted me to continue with school...but she could not convince my father...After
I had my baby my father said I should get married and he collected dowry’. (EN,
15 year old out of school mother, married to a child-father who is still attending
school)
Immediately my step-father heard that I was pregnant he insisted that I leave his
house immediately. My mother pleaded with him but he refused so I went to live
with my maternal uncle, but there I have to work and take care of myself (RC, 15
year old young mother).
I had my child two weeks before the national exams... due to heavy rains, our
region was inaccessible and we had to sit for the exams at a school near the
29
district headquarters...I had to leave the baby with my mother for 5 days, but my
step-father refused to buy milk for my daughter, since he said he cannot take care
of another man’s child...one of teachers ended up buying the milk...My grades
were not bad, so my mother said I should continue, but my step-father said if I
had wanted to learn, I would not have gotten myself pregnant (LH, 18 year old
young mother of 1 and married).
Gender relations conferred unequal power between fathers and mothers over
the decision making process within households. For three out-of-school young
mothers, their mothers’ preference that they return to school was overruled by
their husbands who did not support the idea. The power asymmetries were
amplified in cases where the young mothers were living in households not
headed by their biological fathers. The interaction between patriarchy and the
household structures meant that where the young mothers lived with stepfathers, older mothers were unable to protect their daughters’ right to remain
within the household after childbearing and by extension their right to
educational support. Older mothers that were not under direct male authority
had more leeway to negotiate for the young mothers’ school re-entry. As one
widowed mother pointed out:
My husband’s relatives do not help me with anything...I take care of my children,
all by myself...therefore there is no way they can come and tell me what to do
with them (TA, mother to 17 year old student-mother)
This male authority over the decision making process was evidently grounded
on the material support that they provided for the older mothers and the entire
family. The livelihood and educational participation of the young mothers and
their siblings necessitated continuous material support and the fear for loosing
this support restrained older mothers from overtly opposing their husbands’
decisions. Hence patriarchy interacted with the insecure livelihoods to affect
the young mothers’ chances of school re-entry.
Another household factor was the young mothers’ family’s socioeconomic backgrounds. With the exception of one young mother, all other
young mothers reported that their biological/step-fathers were engaged either
in small enterprises that supplemented the subsistence farming or were
gainfully employed. None of the older mothers was gainfully employed, but a
number of them were engaged in small enterprises such as tailoring, vegetable
farming (for subsistence and selling), and selling dried fish to supplement the
subsistence farming. While the socio-economic background cannot be said to
be the most determining factor for school re-entry (two of the out-of school
young mothers were from families where the household heads were either
accomplished skilled workers or gainfully employed), it had more to do with
how the livelihood arrangements had to be re-organized to cater for the needs
of the new babies.
Rural poverty had made it difficult for the young mothers’ families to fully
take on the responsibility of meeting the needs of the new born babies. While
the babies could eat from the family pot once they were weaned; the young
mothers’ families could not afford to provide additional requirements such as
milk and soap. Young mothers from households with limited livelihood
options had no choice but to engage in paid work so as to supplement their
natal families increased consumption needs; especially when the fathers of the
30
new babies had not acknowledged paternity. This had implications on the
young mothers’ chances of returning to formal schooling.
Young mothers whose partners had acknowledged paternity either
willingly or coerced by the threat of legal action, provided financial support
that reduced the push for young mothers to be engaged in paid work on a full
time basis. This financial support was a crucial factor that intervened in the
decision making on school re-entry for the young mothers. Of the seven
student-mothers, three of them reported that they accessed financial support
from their male partners. While acknowledging that sometimes the money was
not received as expected, the three student-mothers highlighted that they
would have had to work on a full time basis to support their children were it
not for this financial support. This support also made their parents more
amenable to the idea of returning to school as it released them from having to
meet some of the needs of the new-born babies and the income also
supplemented family consumption needs. Significant to note, is the fact that
none of the out-of-school young mothers received any financial support from
their partners. One young mother that engaged in paid work used the income
earned as a leverage to negotiate for school re-entry.
After working for as a house help for one year, my daughter came and informed
us that she wants to return to school...I told her that I had no money to take her
back to school and also take care of her child...When she said that she had saved
up some money that she will use to buy her school uniform and pay the required
monies...I had no reason to object. Now she does some casual work in the
evenings and week-ends so she can take care of her school needs and her son
(JSK, father to 18 year old student-mother).
4.3
Tabooed images: pregnant schoolgirls and mothers
within the school environment
All the twelve young mothers reported that the teasing and taunting from their
peers start once rumours of pregnancy start circulating. For two of the young
mothers, the taunting left them with emotional scars; they broke down and
cried when talking about this experience. One student-mother pointed out that
while in school, boys would start making sarcastic comments that would trigger
off laughter from the rest of the students.
I can smell a pregnant woman in this classroom...what is a pregnant woman
doing here, go home and cook for your husband! (DM, 19 year old studentmother)
This taunting intimidated some pregnant schoolgirls who stopped attending
school, never to return.
I stopped attending school when I was four months pregnant...because I was
ashamed and afraid of what the other pupils will say about my being pregnant...I
cannot even consider going back...I am too afraid. (FK, 18 year old young
mother)
31
One teacher when asked why none of the pregnant schoolgirls in his school
had returned after childbearing retorted that:
How can they come back to school...they are ashamed of what they have done.
They know their peers will laugh at them and tease them mercilessly. (MK3,
teacher)
Pregnant schoolgirls that stayed on despite the taunting developed resilience
towards the sarcastic comments from their peers.
After a while they (other pupils) get tired of talking about you...If they see that
you are not shying off, they leave you alone after sometime (MK2, 18 year old
student-mother)
The student-mothers that participated in this study had returned to the same
schools where they were enrolled while pregnant. The choice to go to a
different school, where no one knew about the pregnancy, was not an option
available to them, as the alternative schools were far from home and they could
not afford the transport costs necessary to access them. This increased the
chances of student-mothers being exposed to the hostile school environment.
In this instance poverty interacted with the marginalizing discourses to affect
the student-mothers educational choices. Given the taunting during pregnancy,
returning to the same school was therefore an act of bravery.
Going to school while pregnant is not easy, you have to be very strong and put
on a ‘wooden face’ (she means a blank and emotionless facade), but if you are the
shy type and cry every time people say something bad about you...you will not
survive it’. (DM, 19 year old student-mother)
It is evident that discourses on immorality had constructed the pregnant
schoolgirls and student-mothers as ‘immoral’. The pregnancy was evidence of
their immorality as the young mothers had been ‘caught’ and judged to have
broken the moral codes that approve of sexual expression only within the
marriage institution (Ahlbert et al. 2009:107). At the same time, motherhood
was expected take place in the private sphere of home and in the adult arena of
marriage. By bringing their pregnant bodies and motherhood into the public
sphere of schools, the young mothers were contravening these gendered
sphere norms. In line with Butler’s (1990) ideas of gender as performative and
therefore has space for gender bending through repetition of subversive
gender performance (Butler 25, 271-273); I interpret the pregnant schoolgirls
and student-mothers as engaging in “sphere bending” that subverts the
hegemonic confinement of motherhood in the private sphere of home and
marriage. The male pupils were not comfortable with this violation of sphere
norms and demonstrated their displeasure through the comments that pointed
towards their perception that the young mothers should be at home, taking
care of their husbands. Since teachers rarely intervened firmly, the ceaseless
ridiculing was some form of punishment for the ‘deviant’ student-mothers for
bending the gender sphere norms. This covert form of violence on the
pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers in schools was a deterrent to school
participation.
32
Academically, teachers did not hold high expectations of the student
mothers in their schools. Two teachers, from separate schools, concurred on
the views that:
It is very difficult for them [student-mothers] to concentrate in class, they have a
lot on their minds’ (JM and MK3 teachers).
One parent had also expressed similar sentiments:
My father told me that even if I were to return to school after childbearing, there
will be so many things going through my mind that I may not concentrate in
class and will end up failing (EN, 15 year old married young mother)
For these teachers and parents, pregnancy and motherhood seemed to have a
debilitating effect on the young mothers’ cognitive abilities. This is in line with
what Wanda (2004:111) has pointed out as the casting of pregnant schoolgirls
and student-mothers as ‘poor students’ or ‘incapable students’; discursive
frames that have influenced the quality of educational support available to the
young mothers.
4.4
Neighbourhood factors: community’s perception of
student mothers
Young mothers as immoral and having a dangerous sexuality
Discourses on young unmarried mothers as both immoral and incapable
students were also prevalent within the young mothers’ neighbourhoods. As a
result of these discourses, community members discouraged parents from
supporting the young mothers from returning to school. These discourses were
internalised by one parent who discouraged her pregnant daughter from
continuing with schooling.
Many of my peers told me that once a girl has tasted honey (euphemism for sex)
she will always want more of it...so I should not waste my time taking her back to
school, instead I should take dowry from the boy’s father and let her get married
(CM, father of a 19 year old student-mother)
One student-mother pointed out that her own mother asked:
Why do you want to return to school...your peers will laugh at you now that you
are a mother (MK1, 17 year old student-mother)
These discourses are consistent with Okwany’s findings where parents and
community members perceived ‘girls’ sexuality as dangerous and their fertility
could only be constrained by marriage’ (Okwany forthcoming: 12). The
discourses also marginalised young mothers and reinforced the framing of
student-mothers as incapable students; a framing that is also articulated by
teachers in schools.
Religious discourses of forgiveness
Two parents that chose to support their daughter’s return to school despite the
breaking of social norms justified their actions through a religious discourse.
33
One common discourse, stemming from the Christian religion was that people
should be forgiven of their sins.
According to traditions, my daughter is supposed to be married as she has tasted
things meant for adults. But I am a Christian, and the church teaches us to
forgive just as we were forgiven by Christ. I forgave her and gave one last
chance’ (CM, father of a 19 year old student-mother)
This contradiction in using religious discourses of forgiveness, to justify
support for what the same religion had judged as a sin is consistent with
Hailonga’s findings (2005:196) on the contradictory and inconsistent
discourses on adolescent sexuality in Namibia.
Re-casting the images of student mothers: a discourse of capability
The five parents supportive of the young mothers participation in education
named other young mothers from the neighbourhood that had been in the
same situation and returned to school as role models. This was a strategy
employed especially when the parents were encouraging their pregnant and
mothering daughters to return to school; they shared with them examples of
older women who were in professional careers despite having had children
while in school.
When I was in Standard 6, I had an English teacher whom I knew had had a
child while in secondary school, but she had returned to school and later trained
to be a teacher. Also my wife’s elder sister got pregnant while in school, but she
went back and is now a teacher. So I know getting pregnant is not the end of a
girls’ education and I support my daughter because of these examples (CM,
father of 19 year old student-mother)
The successful examples shared by the parent above were of career women
who could provide for themselves and their children; this brings out the
material grounding of the discourses on early childbearing. Unmarried mothers
that had achieved some level of financial independence were perceived
differently than those that had become single parents but continued to be
dependent on their natal families. By gaining financial independence, the
unmarried mothers gained temporary reprieve from the debilitating discourses,
and served as positive role models.
This view was reinforced by what community member presented as the
fragile state of marriages among young people. The young men were presented
by the older fathers as being undependable as separations and divorces were
becoming more common. One fathers stated that:
Among these young people, there are no marriages to speak of. My eldest
daughter is back at my house with her three children after separating with her
husband, if she had gone through school she would have been able to support
herself but now she looks at me for everything. (JSK, father to 18 year old
student-mother)
As such supporting girls to complete their education was a strategic decision
that was taken as a step towards enabling the young mothers become
financially independent just in case their marriages fail in the future.
34
Discourse of girls’ education as a right
The push to get many children into schools in line with the discourse of
universalising primary education, emanating from the area chiefs and NGOs
working in the community influenced the community’s reactions.
I was afraid that the chief will come to ask me why my daughter is not going
back to school...so I sent her back to school as soon as her son was old enough
(KN, father to 17 year old student-mother)
Parents feared being reported to the area chiefs that their children were not
going to school; hence pushing young mothers back into schools oblivious of
the hostile and marginalizing discourses that shaped their learning experiences.
4.5
Pathways into the schools
Young mothers that re-entered the formal education system used different
pathways that were influenced by their caring responsibilities as well as the
livelihood options available within their respective households. Three main
pathways could be discerned from the narratives of the student-mothers. One
pathway, taken by 4 student-mothers, was straightforward as they had
disengaged from learning during late pregnancy and returned to school after a
period between three weeks and 14 months. Another pathway involved one
student-mother who worked away from home for one year, before returning
and re-engaging with schooling. Two student-mothers ran away from their
homes; one during pregnancy and the other after childbearing, before being
brought back home by their parents and returning to school. An analysis of the
factors that influenced the different pathways used by the student-mothers is
discussed below.
Straight pathway
Among the four student-mothers that took the straight pathway back to
school, it was evident that some of the household factors identified earlier
played a role. The availability of female labour (from female relatives) at the
household to support the childcare responsibilities enabled an early return to
school. The socio-economic background of the families and the financial
support received from the fathers of their babies was also an influencing
factor. Three of these student mothers used the income received as child
support to leverage for a straight pathway to school.
After my father and the area chief went to the police station to report my son’s
father, he agreed to provide some money for the child...but because my mother
also had my baby sister to take care of...I stayed home for more than one year,
and only returned to school when my son started walking, so by then my mother
could look after him. (MK1, 17 year old student-mother)
However, even where financial support was available, the absence of
female labour to support the caring responsibilities necessitated a delayed
return to schooling. The ability to draw on existing kinship ties was therefore a
key factor in enhancing an early return to schooling.
35
Working first, then home and school
On the other hand, household vulnerabilities in meeting the survival needs of
its members necessitated one student-mother to engage in paid work;
extending the pathway from home to school to include work. For MK2, a
severe drought that had led to crop failure in their family farm forced her to
leave her household with her baby and move to a neighbouring urban centre to
work as a house-help. The income she made from this work, supplemented the
earnings from a brother (also engaged casual work in the same town) for her
family survival and that of her child. With the next good harvest, MK2 was
able to stop working and return to schooling; she used her savings to purchase
school uniform and pay for levies demanded by the school. Since the father of
MK’s baby had refused to acknowledge paternity, no financial support was
received from him towards childcare. Consequently, the student-mother
continued to engage in paid work after school and on weekends, to raise
income towards purchasing items like soap and second-hand clothes for her
son.
Running away from home and school
Another group of the student-mothers opted to run away from home once it
was known that they were pregnant. Two student-mothers run off to stay with
the families of their partners; these stays ranged from two weeks to 2 months
after which the parents managed to get them back home.
The night after scolding my daughter about the pregnancy, she sneaked out at
night and ran away. We were worried as we did not know that she had run off to
the father of her baby. Two days after her disappearance, the young man’s father
came to see me and informed me that my daughter was at his home-stead...I was
angry, but I also pitied her...I knew the home she had run to...she will be going
without food. That is the same thing that happened to her elder sister, and now
she is always at my house with her children (CM, father to 19 year old studentmother)
Parents expressed concern that their daughter ran off to young men whose
families could take care of them. These two parents worked with the area
chiefs to get their daughters back as they were below 18 years of age (the legal
age when they could consent to marriage). This leaves one wondering if they
would have taken the same view and actions had the girls run off to wealthy
homesteads.
4.6
Agency and resilience: subverting and contesting and
material and discursive barriers
Despite the issues highlighted above, a number of young mothers made a
conscious decision to return to schooling after childbearing. This necessitated
some of them to engage in paid work so as to meet the associated costs of
schooling. One student-mother, had to work as a house help after childbearing,
so as to meet not only material needs of her child, but also to get money that
she used to purchase school uniform as well pay the required school levies. For
this study participant, the work was not only a mean to facilitate survival but
36
was also to facilitate a return to school. This is consistent with Kabeer’s
conceptualisation of agency as the power to choose a course of action and
pursue it (Kabeer 1999:438). This positive agency was also a key factor in
bending the private-public gender sphere norms especially when the studentmothers placed motherhood firmly in the public realm of schools; a clear
demonstration of the transformative nature of student-mothers positive
agency.
While in school, the student-mothers resisted the derogatory comments
made about them by fellow pupils. One student-mother pointed out that in
many cases the boys that teased them also had sisters that had become
pregnant while in school, or dropped out of school; and they would point out
these cases to the boys. The girls also drew strength from the examples of
other girls that had been in the same situation and got pregnant. Three studentmothers from one school, talked with pride of a former student-mother who
had passed her national primary examinations and transited to a secondary
school. This not only empowered the student-mothers, but also challenged the
debilitating discourses of student-mothers as ‘poor and incapable pupils’
(Wanda 2004:111). By reinventing and invoking new identities of ‘capable
student-mothers’, these young mothers were able to successfully put into
public scrutiny these negative discourses.
On the other hand a number of girls chose not to return to school, even
when faced with pressure from family to return to schooling. In one of these
families, the father pointed out despite trying to persuade his daughter to
return to schooling after childbearing she refused and threatened to commit
suicide when he persisted. This girl chose not to return to schooling due to the
fear of being taunted by her peers. Knowing that she could not disobey her
father and remain in his homestead, she saw marriage as a better option. Two
of the out-of school mothers stated that they had wished to return to school,
but their family members prevailed upon them not to.
My father said...If I had wanted to learn, I would not have gotten myself
pregnant (LH, 18 year old out-of-school mother)
My father and brother told me not to go back to school...he told the head-teacher
that he was taking me to another school. But he married me off to the father of
my child (EN, 15 year old out-of-school mother)
My mother told me that now I have responsibilities...I need to make money so as
to provide for my son. So I help my mother with her fish business. I now help to
bring home some income...since I can come with the baby to the market, my
mother is free and she can also make money in other ways (FK, 18 year old outof school young mother).
Kabeer (1999:438) states that agency can take on negative meanings when
other actors override the agency of others overtly, through the use of force, or
covertly when social norms ensure certain outcomes without the exercise of
agency. The actions of these fathers, as narrated by the young mothers point to
negative meaning of agency influenced by the dominant notions of women as
prone to promiscuity (Mulongo 2005:29). At the same time, the poverty in
which the young mother’s families were caught in made the young mothers’
37
labour an important input to the family livelihood; schooling was therefore low
on the priority of these young mothers and their families. This demonstrates
the constrained and ambivalent nature of the young mothers’ agency; as others
are able to use the similar circumstance to achieve different outcomes.
Conclusion
Gender relations have shaped the lived experiences of the young mothers,
necessitating a delicate balance of the roles and associated burdens of being
daughters, mothers and learners. These triple roles and triple burdens had
different implications on the pursuit of education for these young mothers;
with young mothers from families with additional adult female labour to
support in the gendered roles faring better. While the triple roles sometimes
conflicted, it was evident that the roles associated with young mothers as
learners were deemed to be subsidiary to their roles as daughters and mothers.
These triple roles interacted with family livelihood insecurities and the
marginalizing discourses on schoolgirl pregnancy and early childbearing
(pervasive in schools and neighbourhoods) to mediate the schooling
opportunities and experiences for the young mothers.
The young mothers’ agency was often constrained and ambivalent. In line
with the positive aspects of agency, student-mothers were able to gain access
and survive in schools by deploying different strategies such as naming other
student-mothers that had pioneered “sphere-bending” and were now in
professional careers. The exercise of positive agency by student-mothers
demonstrated their potential to transform the gendered ideologies of
pregnancy and motherhood as roles that had no place within the public spaces
such as schools. However, teachers were unable to fully protect the pregnant
school-girls and student-mothers from the marginalization and stigmatization
that stemmed from the discourses deployed against them in schools; a
discursive terrain in which the teachers are also embedded in.
5
Gender relations and the right to education for young
mothers
The aim of this study was to establish how gender relations affected schooling
for pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers in Kenya. To establish the nature
of interaction between gender relations and the education of young mothers,
the two main policies that shape the young mothers experience of disengaging
and re-engaging with the education system were reviewed. The study also
explored how household factors interacted with other institutions like the
school and community to influence the way the young mothers re-engage with
schooling. This concluding chapter brings together the issues emanating from
the study into a conclusion from the perspective of the research questions. The
chapter also reviews the implications of the study findings in as far as realising
the right to education for young mothers is concerned.
38
5.1
Gender relations and the education of pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers
Educational participation of pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers in
Kenya has been facilitated by school re-entry policies. Although these policies
are important first steps in dismantling discriminatory practises towards young
mothers in education, they fall within the category of policies that are deemed
to have failed to challenge gendered ideologies (Chilisa 2002:24).The findings
of this study point how the current policies guiding the education of studentmothers have set different parameters for the male and female pupils and also
conformed with gendered discourses of reproduction by placing the
responsibility for nurturance of children on student-mothers. At the same time,
these polices have an in-built permissive attitude towards the sexuality of male
pupils as evident in the way student-fathers are allowed to get away from the
‘moral’ responsibility and ‘discursive burden’ through provision for counselling
and rehabilitation.
The study has also revealed a gendered and normative nature of the well
meaning policy prescription that requires schoolgirls to “volunteer” for
pregnancy testing every academic term. The analysis reveal that such a
prescription seeks to “catch” and penalise schoolgirls that have been found
guilty (with pregnancy as proof) of breaking social norms on sexuality that
confer different sexual behaviour on female and male youth. This conforms to
the gendered ‘dominant notions of women as having a natural tendency
towards promiscuity’ (Mulongo 2005:29) and is also a covert form of violence
on the young women as it is a violation of their reproductive health rights;
specifically the right to privacy.
The findings of this study also established a dissonance between the policy
prescriptions and practise in that there was no consensus on when a pregnant
schoolgirl can be sent home from school and at what point affected girls can
re-engage. The implication of this dissonance on the education of pregnant
schoolgirls and student-mothers had two faces. On the one hand it created
critical spaces for negotiating a prolonged stay in school while pregnant as well
as an early re-engagement for student-mothers. On the other hand the
inconsistencies disadvantaged young mothers that were forced to leave school
in the early months of their pregnancy. In instances where the teachers’ policy
interpretations allowed pregnant schoolgirls to stay in school until late into
their pregnancy, the likelihood of a return to schooling after childbearing
increased.
The young mothers, either in school while pregnant or as studentmothers, had to contend with endless taunting from their peers that stemmed
from gendered discourses. Motherhood was expected take place in the private
sphere of home and in the adult arena of marriage. By bringing their pregnant
bodies and motherhood into the public sphere of schools, the young mothers
were seen as violating the public-private sphere norms and as such deserved to
be reprimanded through marginalizing discourses. This reprimanding for
“sphere-bending” was permitted through an evident lack of firm policies to
deal with the stigmatisation of young mothers in school. These findings are
consistent with Chilisa’s arguments that re-entry policies that require a
39
temporary disengaging with schooling for pregnant school-girls violates young
mothers’ right to education and are based on gender inequalities, that are
supported by traditional ideologies and institutions, eventually making school
re-entry difficult for the young mothers (Chilisa 2002:21).
The push from both state and non-state actors to get out-of-school
children, including the young mothers, enrolled in school also influenced
school re-entry for the young mothers thus enhancing the principle of equality
in education. Unfortunately, this push was done without considerations of and
engaging with the hostile school environments that awaited the studentmothers. This was compounded by the fact that the student-mothers could not
afford the financial cost associated with moving to different schools after
childbearing. Subsequently, poverty at household level interacted with the
marginalizing discourses to enhance the young mothers’ exposure to hostile
school environment and deterred the out-of-school young mothers from reengaging with schooling.
5.2
Gender relations and contradictory discourses at the
household and community
Gender relations were also implicated on how young mothers strived to
maintain a balance between their triple roles as mothers, daughters and
learners; roles that co-existed simultaneously and sometimes conflicted. As
young unmarried mothers, living under the authority of their parents, they had
to fulfil their socially prescribed roles of daughters within the gender division
of labour regime and at the same time attend to the needs of their children,
while as learners; they had to keep up with a rigid school routine and
expectations. These roles not only conflicted, (such as the times when studentmothers had to miss school to attend to their sick babies), but were also
hierarchical. The role of the young mothers as learners was deemed to be
subsidiary to the other roles of daughters and mothers. This made schooling an
option that could be considered only after it was confirmed that there was
adequate female labour to support the household chores and childcare
responsibilities.
The gendered discourses on sexuality that framed young mothers as
immoral and incapable students were prevalent in both the schools and
neighbourhoods; however contradictory discourses were deployed by parents
when supporting school re-entry for young mothers. The religious discourse of
forgiveness of ‘errant’ young mothers and the naming of young mothers that
had succeeded to transit through school after child bearing as role models were
deployed to encourage young mothers return to schooling. These discourses of
role models shifted the discursive frame and re-casted student’s mothers as
capable of achieving academic and career success. The findings also established
that patriarchy interacted with insecure livelihoods to affect the young mothers’ chances of school re-entry. The male authority over the decision making
process was grounded on the material support that they provided for the older
mothers and their other children; the fear of losing this support prevented
older mothers from pushing for a school re-entry for the daughters against the
wishes of their husbands.
40
5.3
Pathways for re-engaging with schooling
Household livelihood security interacted with household structures to shape
the pathways taken by the young mothers that re-entered the formal education
system. Three main pathways were discerned from the experiences of seven
student-mothers. The first pathway, a straight forward one, was taken by
student-mothers from households with two key features: financial support
either from relatives or the baby’s fathers as well as the availability of additional
female labour (mainly from relatives) to take on the household chores and the
childcare responsibilities. The second pathway, involved working first then a
return to home and later school, was taken by one student mother. In this case,
exogenous factors, such as a drought compromised the household’s ability to
meets its survival needs pushing the young mother to engage in paid work. The
income raised by this young mother went into supporting the survival of her
family and child as well as meeting education related expenses necessary for a
school re-entry. The insecure livelihood has necessitated that this young
mother continues to juggle paid work and schooling. The third pathway was
taken by two young mothers who opted to run away from home once it was
known that they were pregnant. Parental concern over the livelihood security
of their daughters in the homes that they had ran to made them bring them
back home and convinced them to return to school.
5.4
Realising the right to education for pregnant schoolgirls
and student-mothers
The above findings have a number of implications on the education of
pregnant schoolgirls and student-mothers. The first implication is the need to
engage with the state policies on school re-entry with the aim of making them
more responsive to the educational needs of young mothers. Agarwal argues
that the state can also be an arena for cooperation and bargaining (Agarwal
1997:32-34). A rights-based discourse must be at the heart of education policy
making. In this regard, gender-progressive organizations can negotiate with the
state for transformative continuation policies that take on the gendered
ideologies. This engagement should also coalesce around achieving a discursive
shift in issues of sexuality of young unmarried women and motherhood in the
public sphere of school. These continuation policies should be accompanied
by firm policies to deal with the perpetrators of marginalizing discourses within
the school setting.
The findings that point to how caring demands and insecure livelihoods
affected the pathways and ultimately the chances of school re-entry for
student-mothers, implying the need to look beyond the school factors in
enhancing the education of pregnant school-girls and student-mothers.
Care arrangements for children of student mothers also require attention if
students mothers are to realise the three dimensions of rights in education
highlighted by Subrahmanian (cited in Unterhalter 2007:56). The success of
young mothers re-engaging with schooling rested on the support of female
relatives who were willing to take on the household chores and child care
responsibilities while the young mothers were in school. Non-state actors have
the capacity to mobilise communities to initiate community managed crèches
41
that can run by the older women from the same community. The women’s
labour and time can be compensated in creatively sustainable ways that can
transform traditional perspectives and present child caring as valuable work
that deserves recognition.
Rural poverty and livelihood insecurities also need to be combated if
families are to stop using their daughters’ labour for consumption smoothing
in times of crisis (Okwany forthcoming: 11). This necessitates gender sensitive
social protection programmes that will protect the young mothers and the
families from both economic and social vulnerabilities (Holmes and Jones
2010:1).
Conclusion
This study has provided a glimpse into the experiences of young mothers in
relation to their educational participation. The narratives of the young mothers
point to spaces that provide for negotiation for schooling for pregnant
schoolgirls and student-mothers. The young mothers’ positive agency and
resilience within schools has also challenged gender norms on pregnancy and
motherhood. However this challenging of social norms comes at a cost to
them as they experience stigmatization and isolation in school and are pushed
by poverty to find means of generating income for their children and
sometimes their own natal families even when they are in school. The findings
indicate that for the school re-entry polices to be transformative; they must be
attendant to the material and discursive situation of student mothers.
References
Agarwal, B. (1997) ‘“Bargaining” and Gender Relations: Within and Beyond the
Household’, Feminist Economics 3(1) 1-51.
Ahlberg, B.M., E. Jylkas and I. Krantz (2001) ‘Gendered construction of sexual risks:
implications for safer sex among young people in Kenya and Sweden’,
Reproductive Health Matters 9(17): 26-36.
Ahlberg, B.M., A. Kamau, F. Maina and A. Kulane (2009) Multiple discourses on
Sexuality Implications for Translation Sexual Wellness Concept into Action
Strategies in a Kenyan Context, African Sociological Review 13(1) Accessed October
14, 2010 <http://ajol.info/index.php/asr/article/viewFile/57750/46117>
Bruce, J. And B. Lloyd (1997) ‘Finding the Ties that Bind: Beyond Headship and
Household’ in Haddad, L., J. Hoddinott, and H. Alderman (eds) Intrahousehold
Resource Allocation in Developing Countries, pp. 213-228. London: John Hopkins
Press Ltd.
Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble:Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge.
Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) [Kenya], Ministry of Health [Kenya], and ORC
Macro (2004) Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2003. Calverton, Maryland:
CBS, MOH and ORC Macro.
Centre for the Study of Adolescents (2008) ‘Down the Drain, Counting the Cost of
Teenage Pregnancy and School Drop-out in Kenya. Accessed on 9, June 2010.
<http://www.csakenya.org/pdfs/CSA%20Pregnancy-FINAL%202EDITED.pdf >
42
Chevalier, A. and T.K Viitanen (2003) ‘The Long-run Labour Market Consequences
of Teenage Motherhood in Britain’, Journal of Population Economics 16(2) 323-343.
Chigona, A. and R. Chetty (2007) ‘Girls Education in South Africa: Special
Consideration to Teen Mothers as Learners,’ in Journal of Education for International
Development 3(1):1-17.
Chilisa, B. (2002) 'National Policies on Pregnancy in Education Systems in SubSaharan Africa: The Case of Botswana', in Gender and Education, 14 (1):21-35.
Dance, J.L (2009) ‘Racial, Ethnic and Gender Disparaties in Early School Leaving
(Dropping Out)’ in Dill,B.T and R.E Zambrana (eds) Emerging Intersections: Race,
Class and Gender in Theory, Policy and Practice, pp 180-202 USA: Rutgers University
Press.
De Boeck F. & Honwana, A. (2005) ‘Introduction: Children and Youth in Africa’ in
Honwana, A & F. De Boeck, (eds) Makers & Breakers: Children and Youth in
Postcolonial Africa, pp 1-18 Trenton and Asmara: Africa World Press.
Elimu Yetu Coalition (2005) ‘The Challenge of Educating Girls in Kenya’ in Aikman,
S. and E. Unterhalter (eds) Beyond Access: Transforming Policy and Practice for Gender
Equality in Education, pp 106-127 Oxford: Oxfam Publishing
Ellis, F. (2000) Rural Livelihood and Diversity in Developing Countries. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Eloundou-Enyegue, P.M. (2004) ‘Pregnancy-related Dropouts and Gender Inequality
in Education: A Lifetable Approach and Application to Cameroon’, in
Demography 41(3): 509- 528.
Fennell, S and M. Arnot (2008) 'Decentring hegemonic gender theory: the
implications for educational research', Compare: A Journal of Comparative and
International Education, 38: 5, 525-538.
Foucault, M. (1978) The History of Sexuality Volume 1. London: Penguin.
Greenhalgh, S. (1985) ‘Sexual Stratification: The Other Side of “Growth with Equity”
in East Asia’, Population and Development Review 11(2):265-314.
Haddad, L., J. Hoddinott and H. Alderman (1997) ‘Introduction: The Scope of
Intrahousehold Resource Allocation’ in Haddad, L., J. Hoddinott, and H.
Alderman (eds) Intrahousehold Resource Allocation in Developing Countries, pp. 1-16
London: John Hopkins Press Ltd.
Harding, S. (1986) The Science Question in Feminism. Ithaca: Cornell University.
Hailonga, P. (2005) ‘Adolescent Sexuality and Reproductive Behaviour’, PhD thesis.
The Hague: Institute of Social Studies.
Heward, C. (1997) ‘Introduction’ in Heward, C. and S. Bunwaree (eds) Gender,
Education and Development: Beyond Access to Empowerment. New York, London: Zed
Books.
Holland, J. and C. Ramazanoglu (1994) ‘Coming to Conclusions: Power and
Interpretation in Researching Young Women’s Sexuality’ in Maynard, M and J.
Purvis (eds) Researching Women’s Lives from a Feminist Perspective, pp125-148
Portsmouth UK: Taylor & Francis.
Holland, S., E. Renold, N.J. Ross and A. Hillman (2010) ‘Power, Agency and
Participatory Agendas: A Critical Exploration of Young People’s Engagement in
Participative Qualitative Research’, in Childhood 17(3) 360-375.
Holmes, R. and N. Jones (2010) ‘Gender Sensitive Social Protection and the MDGs’,
Briefing Paper No. 61. London: Oversees Development Institute Retrieved on
12, November < http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/4855.pdf>
43
Kandiyoti, D. (1998) ‘Gender, Power and Contestation: Rethinking bargaining with
patriarchy’ in C. Jackson & R. Pearson (eds.) Feminist Visions of Development: Gender
Analysis and Policy, pp. 135-151. London, New York: Routledge
KIPPRA (2009) Kenya Economic Report: Building a Globally Competitive Economy. Nairobi:
KIPPRA Publication Accessed on 9 June 2010.
<http://www.kippra.org/KER%202009.pdf >
Koohi-Kamali, F (2008) ‘Intrahousehold Inequality and Child Gender Bias in
Ethiopia,’ Policy Research Working Paper No. 4755 The World Bank.
Kabeer, N. (1999) ‘Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the
Measurement of Women's Empowerment’ Development and Change, 30 (4):435-464.
Kynch, J. (1998) ‘Famine and Transformation in Gender Relations’, in C. Jackson and
R. Pearson (eds) Feminist Visions of Development: Gender Analysis and Policy, pp. 108134. London: Routledge.
Lloyd, C.B. and B.S Mensch (2008) 'Marriage and Childbirth as Factors in Dropping
Out from School: An Analysis of DHS Data from sub-Saharan Africa', in
Population Studies, 62: 1, 1-13.
McCall, L (2005) ‘The Complexity of Intersectionality’, The Journal of Women in Culture
and Society, 30(3) 1771-1800.
Mensch, B.S.,W. H. Clark, C. B. Lloyd, and A.S. Erulkar. (2001) ‘Pre-marital Sex,
Schoolgirl Pregnancy, and School Quality in Rural Kenya’, in Studies in Family
Planning 32(4): 285-301.
Ministry of Education Science and Technology (MOEST), Government of Kenya
(2005a) ‘Kenya Education Sector Support Programme’ Accessed on September
4, 2010
<http://chet.org.za/manual/media/files/chet_hernana_docs/Kenya/National/
Kenya%20Education%20Sector%20Support%20Programme%2020052010.pdf>
Ministry of Education Science and Technology (MOEST), Government of Kenya
(2005b) ‘ICT in Education Options Paper’ Accessed October 18, 2010 at
<http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADI898.pdf >
Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation and Ministry of Education, Government of
Kenya (2009) ‘National School Health Policy’.
Ministry of State Planning, National Development and Vision 2030, Government of
Kenya (2008) ‘Malindi District Development Plan 2008-2012’.
Mtshali, S.M. (2002) ‘Household Livelihood Security in Rural KwaZulu-Natal, South
Africa’, PhD Thesis. Wageningen: Wageningen University.
Mulongo, E.M.N (2005) ‘Young Single Motherhood: Contested Notions of
Motherhood and Sexuality in Policy Discourses/Program Interventions’ ISS
Working Paper General Series No. 423. The Hague: Institute of Social Studies.
Nsamenang, A. B (2002) ‘Adolescence in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Image Constructed
from Africa’s Triple Heritage’ in Brown, B.B., R.W. Larson and T.S. Saraswathi
(eds) The World’s Youth: Adolescence in Eight Regions of the Globe pp. 61-104.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Obbo, C. (1980) ‘African Women: Their Struggle for Economic Independence,’ London: Zed
Press.
Okwany, A (Under review) ‘Negotiating tensions in Girlhood: Marginalization and
Agency of Urban Poor Girls in Kenya’ in A. Honwana (ed) Youth
Marginalization and Citizenship in Africa. Special Issue Development and
Change: Wiley-Blackwell.
44
Okwany, A. (2004) ‘Entering the Quagmire: Examining State-NGO Interaction in the
Provision of Education for Urban Poor Children in Kenya’ in Sutton, M and R.
Arnove (eds), Civil Society or Shadow State ? State/NGO Relations in Education.
Connecticut: Information Age Publishing Inc.
Phoenix, A. (1991) Young Mothers? Cambridge MA: Polity Press in association with
Basil Blackwell.
Population Council, (2009) ‘New Lessons, The Power of Education Adolescent Girls: A girls
Count Report on Adolescent Girls’, The Population Council Inc. Accessed on
October 5, 2009
<http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/2009PGY_NewLessons.pdf>
Ramazanoglu, C. (1993) ‘Introduction’ in Ramazanoglu, C. (ed.) Up Against Foucault,
Explorations of Some Tensions Between Foucault and Feminism, pp 1-25. London, New
York: Routledge.
Rich, A. ‘Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, New York:
Norton.
Stoetzler, M. and N. Yuval-Davis (2002) ‘ Standpoint Theory, Situated Knowledge
and the Situated Imagination’, Feminist Theory 3(3) 315-333.
Stromquist, N. P. (1999) ‘The Impact of Structural Adjustment Programmes in Africa
and Latin America’ in Heward, C. and S. Bunwaree (eds) Gender, Education and
Development: Beyond Access to Empowerment, pp 17-32. New York, London: Zed
Books.
Stromquist, N. P. (2001) 'What Poverty Does to Girls' Education: the intersection of
class, gender & policy in L. A', Compare: A Journal of Comparative and
International Education, 31: 1, 39-56.
Thorne, B (1982) ‘Feminist Rethinking of the family: An Overview’ in Thorne, B and
M. Yalom (eds) Rethinking the Family: Some Feminist Questions, pp 1-21, New York
and London: Longman.
Tomasevski, K. (2003) Education Denied: Costs and Remedies. London, New York: Zed
Books Limited.
UNESCO (2010) EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010, Reaching the Marginalized, Paris:
UNESCO.
UNICEF (2001) ‘A League Table on Teenage Births in Rich Nations’, Innocenti Report
Card No. 3 Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre. Accessed on 5,
September 2010. <http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/repcard3e.pdf>
Unterhalter, E. (2007) Gender, Schooling and Global Social Justice. USA and Canada:
Routledge.
Wanda P (2004) Unfit Subjects: Educational Policy and the Teen Mother. USA and Canada:
Routledge . Google books Accessed on 4 September 2010.
<http://books.google.com/books?id=iBBbIaQgYYC&printsec=frontcover#v= onepage& q&f=false>
Wanda, P. (2006) Teen Pregnancy and Education, Politics of Knowledge, Research,
and Practice, Educational Policy 20 (1) Jan – Mar: 59-84.
World Vision Kenya (2006) Participatory Rural Appraisal:Survey Report for Marafa DI,
Kenya: World Vision.
Wolf, D. (1997) ‘Daughters, Decisions and Domination: An Empirical and
Conceptual Critique of Household Strategies,’ in N. Visvanathan (ed.) The
Women, Gender and Development Reader, pp. 118-132 London: Zed Press.
45
Appendices
Annex I Profile of the study participants
Name
MK1
MN
SA
SK
EN
MK2
AK
DM
Background
17 year old mother of two and a
half years old boy. At the time
of the interview, MK was a
Standard 7 pupil at a public
primary school on the time of
the interview
17 year old mother of six
months old boy. At the time of
the interview MN was a
standard 7 pupil at a public
primary school
17 year old mother of two
months old boy. At the time of
the interview SA was a standard
8 pupils at a public primary
school
20 year old student-mother of 2
year old daughter. At time of the
interview, SK was a standard 7
student-mother
15 year old mother of a three
months old daughter. At the
time of the interview EN was
married.
Date of Interview
Interviewed on July
27th 2010 at her
parent’s home
Interviewed on July 28
2010 at the school
premises
Interviewed on July
28, 2010 at her
parent’s home
Interviewed on July
28, 2010 at the school
premises
Interviewed on July 28
at her marital home
where she was living
with her husband and
parents in law
18 year old mother to a two year Interviewed on July
old son. At the time of the
29, 2010 at her
interview, MK2 was a standard 7 parents’ home
pupil.
20 year old student-mother of 1 Interviewed on July
year old girl. At the time of the
29,2010 at her parents’
interview the student-mother
home
was a standard 8 pupil
19 year old student-mother of 3 Interviewed on August
year old daughter. A former
2, 2010 at the boarding
student in one of the public
house where the
primary schools reached by this researcher was residing
researcher. At the time of the
interview she was a Form 1
46
Name
LH
RC
FK
PK
JM
MK3
JD
CM
ANC
KN
DK
Background
pupil at a secondary school
18 year old young mothers of 1
year old daughter. At the time of
this interview she had completed
her class 8 examinations and was
married
Date of Interview
Interviewed took place
on July 30, 2010 at her
Aunt’s place, which is
a few metres away
from her matrimonial
home.
15 year old year pregnant outInterviewed on July
of-school girl. By the time of the 30, 2010 at an open
interview she was seven months field near the tea house
pregnant and had stopped
where she was working
attending school three months
as a child minder
earlier.
18 year old out of school young Interviewed on August
mothers to a 7 months old
1, 2010 at her mother’s
daughter. She stopped attending house.
school while four months
pregnant
17 year old pregnant out of
The interview took
school young mother to 4
place on August 1, at
months old daughter. She
her mother’s house
stopped attending school while
four months pregnant and now
helps her mother in selling of
dried fish at the local market.
Headteacher, has been in the
Interview took place at
current station for the last 8
the school premises on
years
July 27, 2010
Teacher, has been at the current Interview took place at
station for the last three years
the school premise on
the July 29, 2010
Teacher, has been at the current Interview took place
duty station for the last 4 years
on July 30, at the
school premises
Father of DM, a student-mother Interview took place
on July 27, 2010 at his
premises
Father of SK, a student-mother Interview took place
on July 29, 2010
Father of MK1, student-mother Interview took place
on July 27, 2010 at the
home
Mother of MK1, studentInterviewed on July
47
Name
JSK
WK
Background
mother
Father of MK2, student-mother
TA
Mother of FK, out-of-school
young mother
Mother of SA, student-mother
CN
Area chief
PT
Programme Manager of an
NGO working in Marafa
District
Programme Manager of an
NGO working in Malindi
District
Children’s Officer
JWG
EM
48
Date of Interview
27, 2010 at the home
Interviewed on July
29,2010
Interviewed on August
2, 2010
Interviewed on July
28, 2010
Interviewed on July
28, 2010 in his office
Interviewed on August
3, 2010 in his office
Interviewed on August
16,2010 in her office
Interviewed on August
13, 2010 in his office
Annex II Excerpts of the school return policy passed in 1994

Girls who become pregnant should be admitted back to school unconditionally

Headteachers, District and Municipal Education Officers should assist
such girls to be readmitted to other schools to avoid psychological and
emotional suffering

Intensive guidance and counselling should be provided to the affected
girl, parents, teachers and other girls in the school.

Once a girls is sent home, the parents should be summoned to the
school and receive some counselling after which they should take their
daughter home. Headteachers and other teachers should understanding
when handling cases of this nature.

The school should keep in touch with such girls and their families so as
to monitor what is happening and provide the necessary moral, emotional and spiritual support. Counselling for both the girl and parents
should not be discontinued.

The Parents should seek readmission of their daughter to school after
the baby is weaned. Headteachers should provide the necessary help in
this regard. In case of any problem, the Provincial, District and Municipal Education Officers should assist.

Other girls in the school should be counselled on consequences of irresponsible sexual behaviour, adolescent sexuality, boy/girl relationships,
negative peer influences, building self-confidence and self-esteem

Those who make girls pregnant should be exposed. For example teachers and other adults in the community should face legal action. Boys
should be given counselling so that they can take responsibility for
their actions.
Source: MOE December 1998 (cited in CSA 2008:45)
49
Annex III: Excerpts of the National School Health Policy
Teenage pregnancy in school
Teenage pregnancy is one of the key causes of school drop out by girls. Girls
therefore need to be protected from teenage pregnancy and supported if
pregnancy occurs to enable them pursue their education. Therefore:
 Girls will undergo voluntary medical screening once per term;
 A pregnant female learner shall be allowed to continue with classes for
as long as possible;
 Both the student and her parents shall be counselled on the importance
of ensuring good outcome of the pregnancy by attending Ante-Natal
Clinic and ensuring safe delivery, and the possibilities of continuing
with education after delivery;
 Efforts shall be made to get information on the circumstances leading
to pregnancy and about the other party involved. A children’s officer
shall be informed
 Action, including legal action will be taken if the father of the unborn
child is an adult (over 18 years). Child-fathers (boys less than 18
years)shall receive counselling and rehabilitation;
 Young mothers shall be encouraged to learn to look after their child in
order to bond with the child as much as possible;
 New born babies must be allowed the benefit of breastfeeding as much
as possible including exclusive breastfeeding for six months and introduction of complementary feeding at 6 months of age while continuing
breastfeeding;
 Young mothers shall be encouraged to attend child welfare clinics
(youth friendly) and ensure that babies are fully vaccinated.
At the appropriate time the adolescent mothers may seek readmission into the
same school or if they wish so join other schools.
The following practice shall be observed in the event of re-admission:
 Her parents/guardian shall be encouraged to make adequate arrangements for the care of the child at home while the young mother is in
school. This is to avoid unnecessary interruptions to the teenage
mother’s studies.
 As far as possible, the teenage mother shall be allowed to join at the
level where she left;
 The school administration shall make all efforts to treat the teenage
mother like other students and not keep reminding her of her mistake.
To all intents and purposes the school fraternity shall act as if nothing
had happened to her;
50



Teenage mothers in school shall not be allowed to form groupings e.g
of young mothers clubs.
Counselling services shall be available to the teenage mothers including
re-emphasis on life skills for avoidance of future unplanned pregnancies;
Confidentiality and professionalism shall be adhered to in handling the
teenage mother
Source: National School Health Policy (2009: 23-24)
51